TRAINED RAT USED TO STRING COMPUTER CABLES Rattie, Judy Reavis's trained rat, is being used to string computer cables in hard-to-reach places in California school buildings. The rat clenches string in its teeth, and then follows the path of least resistance inside the walls, along ceiling panels and under floors. The rat goes to an exit point identified by tapping sounds and is rewarded with cat food. Computer cable is attached to the string and pulled through the path used by the rat. Dr. Reavis, a biophysicist and physician, was volunteering for NetDay 2000, the school computer project, when a co-worker mentioned a failed effort to train a rat in wiring. Dr. Reavis thought of her adopted laboratory rat and built a maze of plastic pipe in her Benecia, California, home to train the rat. It took about 20 minutes a day for three months to train Rattie to negotiate the maze, avoid dead ends, and travel toward tapping sounds.
Frederick Rose, "Need an Electrician? Here's One Who Works Both
Fast and Cheap" The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 1997, B1
when I was 7 or so, a friend and I went through the World Book Encyclopedia and at the beginning of each letter's section, there was a 'history of the letter form'. each letter had an 'ancient Phoenician' variant, so we gathered those all up and used them as a secret code. I still occasionaly doodle in ancient Phoenician characters to this day.
my 'normal' handwriting is pretty lame, tho, but like many many of the posts here already, slowing down when I write helps _a lot_.
how about this - with every credit card, one would have a second 'key name' known only to the card user and the credit card company. so, when I make a 'regular' purchase, I use my card with my 'regular' name, "Joe Schmoe." but when I snipe a spammer, I use my card number (good, unfilterable by number) with the 'key name' (EVIL! EVIL! MUST KILL SPAMMER!), "Cecil Gentry."
that's just not true. the hole in the middle, for one, makes a CD a bad coaster. also, the fact that the CD is so smooth makes it prone to sticking to the bottom of your drink (I have a lot of coasters that were designed as coasters that have this problem, too).
_maybe_ gluing a circle of felt to the CD would improve its use as a coaster.
but really, the better use of a dead CD is for skeet shooting.
most 3d rendering apps that I'm familiar with don't use the video card for anything other than previewing. that's changing - a lot more will be handled by graphics cards in the future in order to approach the goal of fully rendered 'virtual reality'.
Ivan Sutherland cites "the wheel of reincarnation" whereby the graphics co-processor becomes more and more powerful until it is a stand-alone general purpose computer which in turn gets its own graphics co-processor starting the cycle again.
we have a long way to go before we run out of need for more powerful graphics cards.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd rather see 'viola' than 'wa-la'...
-calyxa
-calyxa
a reference to a book "inspired by" X _is_ on the topic of X!
and by the way - the reference is hardly "obscure" -- _A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer_ was the subtitle of the book!
-calyxa
whoever modded that off-topic clearly hasn't read Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_!
-calyxa
-calyxa
-calyxa
I always liked this story:
TRAINED RAT USED TO STRING COMPUTER CABLES
Rattie, Judy Reavis's trained rat, is being used to string computer cables
in hard-to-reach places in California school buildings. The rat clenches
string in its teeth, and then follows the path of least resistance inside
the walls, along ceiling panels and under floors. The rat goes to an exit
point identified by tapping sounds and is rewarded with cat food. Computer
cable is attached to the string and pulled through the path used by the
rat. Dr. Reavis, a biophysicist and physician, was volunteering for NetDay
2000, the school computer project, when a co-worker mentioned a failed
effort to train a rat in wiring. Dr. Reavis thought of her adopted
laboratory rat and built a maze of plastic pipe in her Benecia, California,
home to train the rat. It took about 20 minutes a day for three months to
train Rattie to negotiate the maze, avoid dead ends, and travel toward
tapping sounds.
Frederick Rose, "Need an Electrician? Here's One Who Works Both
Fast and Cheap" The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 1997, B1
when I was 7 or so, a friend and I went through the World Book Encyclopedia and at the beginning of each letter's section, there was a 'history of the letter form'. each letter had an 'ancient Phoenician' variant, so we gathered those all up and used them as a secret code. I still occasionaly doodle in ancient Phoenician characters to this day.
my 'normal' handwriting is pretty lame, tho, but like many many of the posts here already, slowing down when I write helps _a lot_.
-calyxa
try to watch it on broadcast TV... just because we have a dish doesn't mean the rabbit ears don't work.
-calyxa
-calyxa
the music is not transmitted to the rovers. the purpose is solely for the team of operators in mission control.
-calyxa
I heard of license plate sale in the UK years ago - someone had paid good money for a plate saying: SUN1L
-calyxa
-calyxa
aitch.
-calyxa
dust grains will fly by the spacecraft at about 13,000 mph, or six times faster than a speeding bullet.
-calyxa
-calyxa
how about this - with every credit card, one would have a second 'key name' known only to the card user and the credit card company. so, when I make a 'regular' purchase, I use my card with my 'regular' name, "Joe Schmoe." but when I snipe a spammer, I use my card number (good, unfilterable by number) with the 'key name' (EVIL! EVIL! MUST KILL SPAMMER!), "Cecil Gentry."
-calyxa
it's what the Whos down in Whoville sing that so annoys the Grinch!
-calyxa
asteroid moves sun!
(heh, I always wanted to do that. karma be damned!)
-calyxa
check out the Long Now organization...
-calyxa
-calyxa
reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend many years ago that we still laugh about...
him: if you had an infinitely small aperature, you could take pictures with infinite depth of field!
me: but you'd have to take an infinitely long exposure...
him: not if you had infinitely fast film!
-calyxa
that's just not true. the hole in the middle, for one, makes a CD a bad coaster. also, the fact that the CD is so smooth makes it prone to sticking to the bottom of your drink (I have a lot of coasters that were designed as coasters that have this problem, too).
_maybe_ gluing a circle of felt to the CD would improve its use as a coaster.
but really, the better use of a dead CD is for skeet shooting.
-calyxa
most 3d rendering apps that I'm familiar with don't use the video card for anything other than previewing. that's changing - a lot more will be handled by graphics cards in the future in order to approach the goal of fully rendered 'virtual reality'.
Ivan Sutherland cites "the wheel of reincarnation" whereby the graphics co-processor becomes more and more powerful until it is a stand-alone general purpose computer which in turn gets its own graphics co-processor starting the cycle again.
we have a long way to go before we run out of need for more powerful graphics cards.
-calyxa