I had the same thought. Once I attended a small group discussion on hunger at a local University. A student from Africa said that when he first came to the U.S., he was in the cafeteria one day when a big food-fight erupted. It made him sick because of the contrast between the U.S. & Africa. He saw people starving over there, but here food is so plentiful we waste it by throwing it at each other as a joke.
I wonder if this could be used to measure attractiveness? Of course this is somewhat of a subjective thing, because I might find certain women attractive, while my friend prefers different women.
If the facial recognition software could identify the distinctive features of women that I prefer, it could potentially find chicks for me!
Of course, since this is slashdot, I would have to move out of my parents home to actually meet these hypothetical chicks.
This is something to consider... When you purchase an over-the counter gun in the U.S., you are required to fill out Form 4473. Question 12 f asks,
"Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective (which includes having been adjudicated incompetent to manage your own affairs) or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?"
All the purchaser has to do is answer "no". If they answer "yes", they will not be permitted to purchase the gun.
Next an instant background check is made, however, only the purchaser's criminal record is checked. In the U.S., due to privacy laws, their mental competancy, (or lack thereof) is not checked. We are basically relying on the purchaser to understand their mental state, and to tell the truth about it. Talk about crazy!!!
This isn't a basic electronics kit, but Parallax sells some starter kits with their BASIC Stamp microcontroller. They have a built in breadboard and some basic components. They have a large number of excellent manuals online which can be downloaded for free. Download some of the manuals and/or school curriculum to see if it might meet your needs.
The thing is sure it's not efficient but who cares. Think of it this way, people are already going to the gym and spending that engery, why not convert a portion of it into usable energy. Now I realize its not going to solve the need for power but every little bit helps.
Efficiency is THE. MOST. IMPORTANT. THING!
Consider this... how much energy does it take to mine the raw materials, transport, and manufacture all the components that go into the generator and its control system? If the efficiency is too low, the generating system will not even be able to gain this back. It can be less than a zero-sum game.
Alternative energy systems are sorely needed, but they MUST be efficient enough to create a significant net gain in energy, or we are wasting our time.
This paper details how our CO2 emissions could be completely counteracted, by converting about 25% of our grain-based agriculture to agriculture based on nut trees.
I had the same problem with a G5, it would work fine with the majority of apps, but would crash in any graphic-intensive game. I did all the updates, ran all kinds of diagnostics, to no avail. Finally, just for the hell of it, I decided to take out a 512 Mb third-party memory card that was installed.
I haven't had a single problem since, even though now I only have 512 Mb of RAM.
All the memory checking utilities that I ran did not find anything wrong with this memory. But I guess they don't stress it like games do.
This article is inaccurate. A Council (local office) of the BSA cannot create their own Merit Badge. This is some local program to educate the Scouts, but whatever award they earn is not "official", and would not help them earn a rank advancement or anything like that.
Here is a list of the current Merit Badges, along with the requirements to earn each one.
If you are so inclined, consider volunteering at your local Council as a "Merit Badge Counselor". If you have expertise in a particular area covered by a Merit Badge, you may be a counselor. A scout may not earn a badge unless a counselor verifies that the scout has completed all of the requirements. So if a scout cannot find a counselor for a particular badge, they have no way of earning it.
A wind power plant can be very cost-effective if the conditions are right. However, I highly doubt that the conditions are right for your yard.
The power that a plant can generate goes by by the square of the wind speed. This is awesome news if the average wind speed on your site is greater than the "rated" wind speed for the plant. It is terrible news if your average wind speed is less. Let me give an example. suppose the rated wind speed for the plant you are looking at is 16 mph. This means that the plant will generate the stated wattage if the wind speed is 16 mph. However if the average wind speed on your site is only 8 mph, you will get only one fourth of the stated wattage.
Not only that, but you have to be careful when looking up wind speed statistics for your site. If you have no wind in 4 days out of 5, but winds of 40 mph on the fifth day, your average will be 8 mph but you will find that the energy your mill generates is less than expected. This is because most mills are designed to scale back or even stop generating in high winds, to protect the mill. Some mills will only generate significant power when the wind speed is in a rather narrow band.
Another thing. Most neighborhoods have large buildings (i.e. two story houses) and tall trees. These obstruct the wind to a great degree. Your mill needs to be well above all of the surrounding obstructions. In my neighborhood this would be impossible for all practical purposes, because we have a number of large oak trees. I'd need a tower well over 100', and my yard is not big enough for the guy wires.
To sum up, if you have constant, reliable winds that average the rated wind speed or better, with very few local obstructions, this can be a good investment. Otherwise you should pass. If you home is on the eastern shore of one of the great lakes, I'd say go for it. The other 99.9% of us will need to try something else.
One of the easiest to learn programs I've ever worked with was Apple's HyperCard. Although the user interface was clunky and didn't follow Apple's Interface Guidelines very well, practically anyone with half a brain could work with it and create something useful.
He should write 5 million times, "I promise I will not spam again.". If he could do 4 of these lines a minute, and write 16 hours a day, it would take him about 3 and half years to complete the punishment.
Develop it as a generic *nix app, and then wrap a pretty Cocoa UI around it. Chapter 14 of the book, "Advanced Mac OS X Programming" by Dalrymple and Hillegass tells how to do it. They build a UI around sort and traceroute.
I've bought the Family Pack several times, to update my laptop, my G5, my daughter's laptop, etc. Yes, I could save $70 by purchasing the single license and copying it on all the machines, but I feel that the extra $70 to be legal is more than fair. Apple has done a good job of adding value to each release, and they need to get something for their work.
I think some of this is caused by the "No Child Left Behind" Act. Our local High School seems to be spending more and more time/effort/money on the low achievers, to bring them up to par so that they can pass the state mandated tests. In the process the average and above average students are somewhat taken for granted and are not challenged as much as they could be.
You can see this when it comes to the number of AP courses offered. When a proposal comes for a new AP class, everyone moans about how expensive they are, since typically the class size is much smaller than a normal class. Also, only a few teachers can truly teach the class. There is a perception that it does not really help the school if the top students do even better... they will pass the state tests no matter what.
But because of No Child Left Behind, it is not unusual to to spend $75,000 on a "special needs" child.
This is a great thing for the kids who cannot perform at least an average level. We are basically pushing the lower end of the bell-shaped curve. However I think it is at the expense of the high ender end.
I run Tiger on an old 500 MHz G3 Pismo laptop. I just have 256 MB, and it isn't a beast but it runs. I usually run Safari, iTunes, Terminal, BBEdit, & Transmit on it, and it works just fine. I didn't have to tweak anything, it installed out of the box. The only thing that feels molasses-slow is NeoOffice.
The PC they were requiring was not a low end PC. It was a fairly high-end Dell laptop.
After my initial post, I checked the UC website and they are currently reviewing the requirements for next year. Most of the departments allow either platform, so perhaps she will be allowed to use the Mac.
My daughter will be entering Univ. of Cincinnati's DAAP (Design, Art, Architecture & Planning) school next fall. The college uses almost all Macs EXCEPT for the Industrial Design program, which requires a PC running Windows. She much prefers a Mac, and was probably going to buy a Mac for her own use and a PC for any school requirements. However now she could just get an Intel MacBook and a copy of XP.
Looks like Apple managed to plug up the leaks from last year.
I wonder, with all of the rumors that were around, if Apple took a different tack... Perhaps they had a number of insiders purposely leak false rumors to the various sites. This strategy could work, because the rumor sites would lose credibility and people would stop visiting.
Make your own blast furnace
on
Makers
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Here is a site with many books that tell you how make all kinds of fun gadgets.
I recall reading that in testing a number of these treatments initially had wonderful results, however the subjects (I suppose they were rats) then grew horrible tumors. I don't have any references... does anyone recall seeing something like this?
Slashdot Mirror
I had the same thought. Once I attended a small group discussion on hunger at a local University. A student from Africa said that when he first came to the U.S., he was in the cafeteria one day when a big food-fight erupted. It made him sick because of the contrast between the U.S. & Africa. He saw people starving over there, but here food is so plentiful we waste it by throwing it at each other as a joke.
If the facial recognition software could identify the distinctive features of women that I prefer, it could potentially find chicks for me!
Of course, since this is slashdot, I would have to move out of my parents home to actually meet these hypothetical chicks.
Can't wait to see The Box O' Truth give it a try.
Next an instant background check is made, however, only the purchaser's criminal record is checked. In the U.S., due to privacy laws, their mental competancy, (or lack thereof) is not checked. We are basically relying on the purchaser to understand their mental state, and to tell the truth about it. Talk about crazy!!!
This isn't a basic electronics kit, but Parallax sells some starter kits with their BASIC Stamp microcontroller. They have a built in breadboard and some basic components. They have a large number of excellent manuals online which can be downloaded for free. Download some of the manuals and/or school curriculum to see if it might meet your needs.
Consider this... how much energy does it take to mine the raw materials, transport, and manufacture all the components that go into the generator and its control system? If the efficiency is too low, the generating system will not even be able to gain this back. It can be less than a zero-sum game.
Alternative energy systems are sorely needed, but they MUST be efficient enough to create a significant net gain in energy, or we are wasting our time.
This paper details how our CO2 emissions could be completely counteracted, by converting about 25% of our grain-based agriculture to agriculture based on nut trees.
Every day we lose more privacy, and any idiot with an Internet connection has access to our information.
You can find an image of any U.S. Driver's License online at this site: Driver's License Bureau.
Find your's and click on the checkbox, "Please Remove".
I haven't had a single problem since, even though now I only have 512 Mb of RAM.
All the memory checking utilities that I ran did not find anything wrong with this memory. But I guess they don't stress it like games do.
This article is inaccurate. A Council (local office) of the BSA cannot create their own Merit Badge. This is some local program to educate the Scouts, but whatever award they earn is not "official", and would not help them earn a rank advancement or anything like that.
Here is a list of the current Merit Badges, along with the requirements to earn each one.
If you are so inclined, consider volunteering at your local Council as a "Merit Badge Counselor". If you have expertise in a particular area covered by a Merit Badge, you may be a counselor. A scout may not earn a badge unless a counselor verifies that the scout has completed all of the requirements. So if a scout cannot find a counselor for a particular badge, they have no way of earning it.
For more information, see this training page, this guide and the application form.
The power that a plant can generate goes by by the square of the wind speed. This is awesome news if the average wind speed on your site is greater than the "rated" wind speed for the plant. It is terrible news if your average wind speed is less. Let me give an example. suppose the rated wind speed for the plant you are looking at is 16 mph. This means that the plant will generate the stated wattage if the wind speed is 16 mph. However if the average wind speed on your site is only 8 mph, you will get only one fourth of the stated wattage.
Not only that, but you have to be careful when looking up wind speed statistics for your site. If you have no wind in 4 days out of 5, but winds of 40 mph on the fifth day, your average will be 8 mph but you will find that the energy your mill generates is less than expected. This is because most mills are designed to scale back or even stop generating in high winds, to protect the mill. Some mills will only generate significant power when the wind speed is in a rather narrow band.
Another thing. Most neighborhoods have large buildings (i.e. two story houses) and tall trees. These obstruct the wind to a great degree. Your mill needs to be well above all of the surrounding obstructions. In my neighborhood this would be impossible for all practical purposes, because we have a number of large oak trees. I'd need a tower well over 100', and my yard is not big enough for the guy wires.
To sum up, if you have constant, reliable winds that average the rated wind speed or better, with very few local obstructions, this can be a good investment. Otherwise you should pass. If you home is on the eastern shore of one of the great lakes, I'd say go for it. The other 99.9% of us will need to try something else.
One of the easiest to learn programs I've ever worked with was Apple's HyperCard. Although the user interface was clunky and didn't follow Apple's Interface Guidelines very well, practically anyone with half a brain could work with it and create something useful.
IMHO the VEX system is NOT a robotics kit. It is controlled via radio control, not by a programmed CPU or microcontroller. BIG difference
I've often figured that the stock would actually go down, and if I had more time I would track some of these.
If they DID go down most of the time, you might actually be able to profit by selling short whenever you got a new spam touting some stock.
If enough people sold short, the price would drop quickly and you could actually hurt the spammer.
He should write 5 million times, "I promise I will not spam again.". If he could do 4 of these lines a minute, and write 16 hours a day, it would take him about 3 and half years to complete the punishment.
Develop it as a generic *nix app, and then wrap a pretty Cocoa UI around it. Chapter 14 of the book, "Advanced Mac OS X Programming" by Dalrymple and Hillegass tells how to do it. They build a UI around sort and traceroute.
I've bought the Family Pack several times, to update my laptop, my G5, my daughter's laptop, etc. Yes, I could save $70 by purchasing the single license and copying it on all the machines, but I feel that the extra $70 to be legal is more than fair. Apple has done a good job of adding value to each release, and they need to get something for their work.
I think some of this is caused by the "No Child Left Behind" Act. Our local High School seems to be spending more and more time/effort/money on the low achievers, to bring them up to par so that they can pass the state mandated tests. In the process the average and above average students are somewhat taken for granted and are not challenged as much as they could be. You can see this when it comes to the number of AP courses offered. When a proposal comes for a new AP class, everyone moans about how expensive they are, since typically the class size is much smaller than a normal class. Also, only a few teachers can truly teach the class. There is a perception that it does not really help the school if the top students do even better... they will pass the state tests no matter what. But because of No Child Left Behind, it is not unusual to to spend $75,000 on a "special needs" child. This is a great thing for the kids who cannot perform at least an average level. We are basically pushing the lower end of the bell-shaped curve. However I think it is at the expense of the high ender end.
I run Tiger on an old 500 MHz G3 Pismo laptop. I just have 256 MB, and it isn't a beast but it runs. I usually run Safari, iTunes, Terminal, BBEdit, & Transmit on it, and it works just fine. I didn't have to tweak anything, it installed out of the box. The only thing that feels molasses-slow is NeoOffice.
The PC they were requiring was not a low end PC. It was a fairly high-end Dell laptop. After my initial post, I checked the UC website and they are currently reviewing the requirements for next year. Most of the departments allow either platform, so perhaps she will be allowed to use the Mac.
My daughter will be entering Univ. of Cincinnati's DAAP (Design, Art, Architecture & Planning) school next fall. The college uses almost all Macs EXCEPT for the Industrial Design program, which requires a PC running Windows. She much prefers a Mac, and was probably going to buy a Mac for her own use and a PC for any school requirements. However now she could just get an Intel MacBook and a copy of XP.
Here is a site with many books that tell you how make all kinds of fun gadgets.
I recall reading that in testing a number of these treatments initially had wonderful results, however the subjects (I suppose they were rats) then grew horrible tumors. I don't have any references... does anyone recall seeing something like this?