If it reboots non-instantly and not with a blue screen, just exactly the same way that it would if you pressed the power button, and it wasn't a virus, I would have narrows it down to the power switch awfully quickly.
I'd have to disagree. My Acer Aspire One started shutting itself off again this morning. It has done this once before. The problem is that for some reason, the CPU fan doesn't switch on and the machine shuts down out of self-preservation. The fix is relatively simple and something I could tell to a non-techie person: pull the battery and the power, hold the ON switch for 20-30 seconds, reconnect the power, start it up (it will likely shut down again, if not, shut it down maniually) and finally put the battery back in. It should work fine after that. I have yet to find a good explanation of why this works, but it most definitely does.
This problem looks almost identical to a flaky power switch, but actually has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Why hire out for the pictures? I'm sure most stars could pull something reasonably flattering (or at least more to their liking than what's on Wikipedia) from their own personal photo collection. If not, how hard is it to hand the camera to the waiter on the next restaurant visit and ask him to take a picture?
Stars meet and greet each other all the time. Could they not exchange cameras then snap away so that each person is then in possession of their own pictures?
I'd start with a crystal radio, although there are designs far more compact than the one on Wikipedia. Next, perhaps a simple transistor amplifier (for which you can use the crystal radio as an audio source), then it might be time to move on to the thousand and one projects you can build around a 555 timer chip and some LEDs.
All of these are low power, low cost, and produce a visible or audible result for immediate gratification.
Wouldn't a voltage fluctuations inside simply become resistive fluctuations in the motor, causing the motor speed to fluctuate, and thus cause fluctuations on the supply power?
Sure, but rotational inertia would smooth them away unless the signal was at 0.1bps or so...
My point was that my desk was inadequate as a computer desk when I had CRTs -- I had to make a shelf extending from the front to hold the mouse and keyboard. With one or two LCDs, the desk is suddenly adequate as is. This is a substantial change, and proves that it is entirely possible to reclaim desk space by switching from a CRT to an LCD (or better yet, two CRTs to two LCDs as was originally the case).
My last CRT was very nice too, it was a 17" KDS X-Flat. The display quality was superior to all but the high-end LCDs of the day and it cost me $125 new. It was a no-brainer at the time. This is why it is still in service on my mother's computer, as she has a desk that IS designed for computer use. (It used to be mine also.) I offered her my 17" Dell LCD, but the KDS X-Flat is superior in every way except bulk, weight, and energy efficiency. Since she never moves the gear, only the energy efficiency means anything at all. For the amount of use it gets, this is not a terribly significant issue.
If I had to go back to CRTs for any reason, I would only accept displays of that quality -- hopefully larger, but I would pick flat, bright, and sharp over sheer size.
Absolutely correct -- there were plenty of floppy cables made with both connector types on them, because the pinouts are the same. Only the connector itself is different. "Borrowing" a connector from another unused cable and grafting it onto the Epson cable near the motherboard end should allow him to use the old cable in a current or less vintage PC, and the drives themselves will also function just fine off a modern ATX power supply (assuming they still work, which they probably do if they were working when the machine was decommissioned).
Just make sure that you put the connector on the right way, or you'll find yourself taking it back off to flip it over. The red stripe down the side of the cable represents Pin 1, as does the little white arrow on the motherboard. You will know you did it backward if the floppy lights come on at power-up and never go out. (No this won't break anything.)
Is the actual computer worth the effort, or are you just going for a retro look and feel? If it's the latter, gut it and shoehorn in a modern microATX board and ATX power supply. If the power switch is a pushbutton "memory" type, then it uses a paperclip-like wire to "remember" whether it should be on or off. Just remove this wire and it will become a momentary pushbutton, which will function perfectly as an ATX power button. (Sure it's overkill to use a 240V 15A switch as a momentary pushbutton, but what else are you going to use it for?) I'm sure you can figure out how to attach a hard drive to some surface, and hack the back panel to match the motherboard and power supply.
For the monitor, you could find a SVGA CRT monitor and swap the shells -- if you consider this important enough. Otherwise, just get some old CRT from the thrift store and clean it up. Chances are nobody other than a fellow geek would notice the anachronism.
The keyboard is likely hardwired for XT keystrokes, but if it has an XT/AT switch somewhere, you can stick an AT-PS2 adapter on it and keep using it.
The floppy drives can be connected to a modern PC's floppy controller with the original cable. The floppy controller spec has not changed in at least a decade, and support for 360k floppies was never dropped. Since floppies (even the 1.44 MB variety) are almost useless, there is no point in improving the existing drives. Just make them work if you are so inclined. You may want to sacrifice one to free up a bay for an optical drive anyway.
If you decided you really wanted to run software of the appropriate age, you still could -- just fire up DOSbox.
One of the two setups is a real office desk, and the other (which I am using now) is a coffee table that is much lower but equally as deep.
I have a picture of the desk setup posted. It has changed slightly (the large speakers have been swapped for smaller ones, the computer speakers are gone, and a USB hub has been added) but the basic setup remains as shown. The monitor sits as far back as possible without pulling the desk away from the wall (more than the inch necessary for cable clearance). In what manner would you consider this setup inadequate?
The living room setup on the coffee table has an identical monitor except for the lack of a spring-loaded base. This also hovers above its associated amplifier. This is less than ideal ergonomically because the table is so low, but it's a coffee table, not a work desk.
> * Single-data-rate DVI maxes out somewhere in the neighborhood of 1920x1080. I'm not sure whether 1920x1080 is slightly below its max, or pushing it slightly beyond its official max, but I know it's pretty close to the limit one way or another. Going higher means you need double data rate...
True, but largely irrelevant unless you insist on recycling your single-link DVI cables.
> which also probably means an ungodly expensive cable, and quite possibly a more expensive video card (unless you normally buy top of the line video cards).
Not true at all. Even my GeForce 6200 did dual-link DVI, and a 10 foot cable cost me $18. I would not exactly call that "ungodly expensive", since 10 foot cables are somewhat exotic. The normal 6 foot (actually 2 meter) length was $10.
I do not presume to speak for parent poster, only for myself.
> Do you keep your LCD further away from you than you would a crt?
Yes. The screen surface is about 7 inches further from my face than it was when I had CRTs. Because the pixel density is slightly lower and the pixels themselves are much better defined, it does not cause a problem at all.
> Do you put things behind your LCD?
No, they're pushed back to the wall or (in the living room) perched precariously on the edge of the table. There is no space behind them to be reclaimed. I have gained the seven inches they've been pushed back, and there is no bulky case sticking out over the edge of the table to get bumped when walking by.
> If the answer to those is "no" then you could use a 100lb trinitron and you wouldn't be "killing any space" more than you would with a 5lb LCD.
Yes, I would. I am able to perch the LCDs in such a manner that the space under them that is not consumed by the base is usable for other things. I stick speakers to the bases of my work monitors, and I let my monitors at home "hover" over my amplifiers while using the base space for USB hubs. Granted, I was able to stick a USB hub to the top of a CRT as well, but then I had to stand up to plug or unplug anything.
I have tried screen rotation, and at least on the Samsung monitors I have had (which are/were TN) it makes the tearing effect of screen refreshes VERY noticeable. In portrait mode it is not noticeable at all. This was true of the 20" 4:3 (1600x1200) and is true of the 23" 16:9 (2048x1152). The thing is, with the 23" I no longer NEED two monitors. I still have two of them but they are in different rooms running a cloned display, along with duplicate mice and keyboards. I can float between the rooms at will and never have to worry about switching computers.
At work I have two 17" Sony panels rotated. Fortunately the bases have a VESA-standard mount, and all it took to rotate them was to remove four screws, re-orient the base, and put the four screws back in. I do not notice any tearing effects, but I do have to sacrifice ClearType. Unfortunately, Office 2007 likes to override my ClearType preferences and I had to do the registry hack to get around that. Needless to say, ClearType looks AWFUL on a rotated monitor.
I used to have an asymmetric setup, with a rotated 17" and the 20" Samsung not rotated. Unfortunately I broke the 20" -- but fortunately found the 23" when searching for a replacement. BOTH 23" monitors together cost me only about $80 more than a single 20" 4:3 monitor would have. Also, the 23" monitors have relatively small bases compared to the display size, so I can use a good deal of the space underneath them for other things such as my amplifiers (again one per room, one audiophile quality and one somewhat less), and I use the space on the base for my USB hubs.
I went to a party on July 4 where the directions were clearly given, along with the admonition "Do not follow Google Maps or your GPS, or you will likely end up on a road that will destroy your car." Even the road they recommended was pretty hard on the average passenger car, and it was one of the few times living in Los Angeles that I felt I had a significant benefit from having a 4WD vehicle. It's not like this was way out in the sticks either, it was just north of the 118 freeway in Chatsworth.
On the other hand, having access to real-time traffic reports was exceptionally useful yesterday when the 405 was slammed due to the fire near the Getty Center. It still took well over twice the usual time to get home, but at least I had the option of choosing the least heinous route.
What kind of loose? The passenger side visor in my car is loose in the sense that the visor will not willingly stay flush against the ceiling. My solution was way less than $400 -- I attached the hook side of a piece of Velcro to the visor. The cloth ceiling liner, plus what little resistance remains in the mechanism, is enough to keep the visor from drooping except in the most exceptional circumstances (like hitting a speed bump I didn't see at 45 mph).
For $400 I think a little ghetto-rigging is in order, as long as you can do it in a way that will go unnoticed.
> So your owner there... he wants 200 10 pound bags, good... good...easy enough... > > How many ounces is that? Tons?
Ounces? Why does that matter here? Just like grams, the number is large enough to be out of most humans' grasp. That's why we HAVE larger and smaller units. Tons? One. One short ton, that is.
Drywall comes in 4 foot by 8 foot slabs. That is why the stud spacing is in 12, 16, or 24 inch intervals -- so that the studs will align with the edges of the drywall.
This assumes your glass transmits that entire range, and that you like grain the size of golf balls in your prints.
I've done lots of existing light photography, and I either need to use fast glass (I have a 50 mm f/1.2 for just this purpose) or push process, even with the fastest films. Ektapress 1000 works reasonably well at 1600, if you tell the lab to push it (and they actually do). T-Max P3200 has tight grain, but a very pronounced halftoning effect (and of course it's monochrome) and it too needs to be pushed -- its natural rating is actually 1600. I've taken some spectacular stage and theater photos on T-Max P3200, and would go back to it in a heartbeat if that was the kind of shooting I needed to do.
Luckily, B/W chemistry is something you can do yourself, so it should not die any time soon.
I'm sure this had to do with the fact that Kodachrome is process E-4, not E-6 like other slide films -- it's a custom job, even in Los Angeles I generally mailed them to Colorado to be developed. As the film market itself dwindles, the smallest niches (such as E-4 process labs) are going to dry up first. Kodak considered this TEN YEARS AGO -- I'm surprised it took them this long.
> Why are enjoying science and gay sex mutually exclusive?
They aren't. It's just that you're applying two very selective filters at once, so few people are going to make it to the output stage.
Think about it this way: How many people care about your research? A few hundred? A few thousand? There's your first narrow filter.
Then you need one who is a homosexual male -- just for the sake of argument let's put that at 10% of the population, and assume your profession has a typical demographic. Even assuming your field is 80% male (the numbers don't change much even if it's 100% male), that means you just eliminated 92% of that few hundred or few thousand. At best you now have a few hundred candidates.
Then add in a filter you probably didn't consider -- they have to be close enough to actually meet and have sex with, and they have to speak at least fluent one language in common with you (you won't be able to talk shop in a pidgin dialect). Long distance relationships suck. Unless you are in a major hub location for your field, you can probably count the remaining candidates on one hand (in binary).
I think your best bet would be to apply the narrowest filter first -- start hanging out with people who care about asymmetric catalysis organic chemistry. Although most of them won't be interested, I know I (as a straight male) would have no objections to setting up two gay friends or acquaintances if I thought they'd like each other. I've done it before.
If it turns out my dating version of the Drake equation proves horribly wrong and there are millions of such candidates out there, then invoke Rule 34 and get rich. Or as George Carlin put it, "nail together two things that have never been nailed together before, and some shmuck will buy it."
At $80,000 per song, I estimate the value of my hard drive at $1.8 BILLION dollars. Yes, billion with a B. By that logic, I should be able to copy my collection onto cheap external hard drives (Seagate's outlet store was just selling them for $25) and mail them out to five people. Those people would then pass on the billions of free dollars to five others, and so on, and so on, and so on... Just think about it, no more foreclosed homes, no more poverty, no more hunger!
What you say? It's imaginary money? But the judicial system just ruled it real!
It is only a matter of time, and it doesn't matter if the U.S. government does it first or not. Admittedly, throwing money at the problem accelerates the process, but it's going to happen regardless. As you pointed out, once the R&D is done it won't be difficult or expensive to make them. The U.S. is not the only party interested in such devices -- do you propose to stop China from throwing money at the problem? These aren't big, ugly nukes, and a disarmament treaty isn't going to stop them from being made because it can't be effectively enforced. The only way to enforce a ban on assassin drones would be to shoot down anything that flies, every time. No more air travel, no more birds, no more R/C planes. Any one of these could actually be a weapon in disguise.
This cat was out of the bag a long time ago. We just didn't realize it. When a country convinced pilots to fly their planes into warships, it was over -- we have replaced the pilots with cameras and radio links, which was rather inevitable. If a technology CAN be weaponized, it WILL be weaponized, somewhere, by someone.
Benzene is conductive because it has "floating" double bonds in its six-carbon ring. This may leave enough electrons free to conduct between buckyballs.
The upside of it being in orbit around L2 is that it never has to face either the earth or the sun, so every second of every day is useful observation time. Hubble is in LEO which makes it accessible, but also shielded by the bulk of the planet almost half of every day for any given target. This is fine for scheduled observations, but not so good for staring at one point or homing in on something in progress. Also, some time is inevitably lost making sure it doesn't stare into something bright as it swings around the planet, which is not an issue at L2.
Even if it does not live as long as Hubble (and it probably won't if there is no servicing), it has the potential to produce more data per unit of time. Also, with the bigger reflector, exposures should not take as long, also freeing it up to do more science. This also has the nice side effect of reducing the effects of thermal noise and cosmic rays, since they just don't have as much time to do their damage to any given picture.
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I'd have to disagree. My Acer Aspire One started shutting itself off again this morning. It has done this once before. The problem is that for some reason, the CPU fan doesn't switch on and the machine shuts down out of self-preservation. The fix is relatively simple and something I could tell to a non-techie person: pull the battery and the power, hold the ON switch for 20-30 seconds, reconnect the power, start it up (it will likely shut down again, if not, shut it down maniually) and finally put the battery back in. It should work fine after that. I have yet to find a good explanation of why this works, but it most definitely does.
This problem looks almost identical to a flaky power switch, but actually has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Mal-2
Your top five are not in Asia. You may not think of it as such, but Kazakhstan is most definitely an Asian country.
Mal-2
I can't speak for the stars, but I'd much rather have a casual snapshot I personally approved than one taken by a random stranger.
Mal-2
Why hire out for the pictures? I'm sure most stars could pull something reasonably flattering (or at least more to their liking than what's on Wikipedia) from their own personal photo collection. If not, how hard is it to hand the camera to the waiter on the next restaurant visit and ask him to take a picture?
Stars meet and greet each other all the time. Could they not exchange cameras then snap away so that each person is then in possession of their own pictures?
Mal-2
I'd start with a crystal radio, although there are designs far more compact than the one on Wikipedia. Next, perhaps a simple transistor amplifier (for which you can use the crystal radio as an audio source), then it might be time to move on to the thousand and one projects you can build around a 555 timer chip and some LEDs.
All of these are low power, low cost, and produce a visible or audible result for immediate gratification.
Mal-2
Sure, but rotational inertia would smooth them away unless the signal was at 0.1bps or so...
Mal-2
My point was that my desk was inadequate as a computer desk when I had CRTs -- I had to make a shelf extending from the front to hold the mouse and keyboard. With one or two LCDs, the desk is suddenly adequate as is. This is a substantial change, and proves that it is entirely possible to reclaim desk space by switching from a CRT to an LCD (or better yet, two CRTs to two LCDs as was originally the case).
My last CRT was very nice too, it was a 17" KDS X-Flat. The display quality was superior to all but the high-end LCDs of the day and it cost me $125 new. It was a no-brainer at the time. This is why it is still in service on my mother's computer, as she has a desk that IS designed for computer use. (It used to be mine also.) I offered her my 17" Dell LCD, but the KDS X-Flat is superior in every way except bulk, weight, and energy efficiency. Since she never moves the gear, only the energy efficiency means anything at all. For the amount of use it gets, this is not a terribly significant issue.
If I had to go back to CRTs for any reason, I would only accept displays of that quality -- hopefully larger, but I would pick flat, bright, and sharp over sheer size.
Mal-2
Absolutely correct -- there were plenty of floppy cables made with both connector types on them, because the pinouts are the same. Only the connector itself is different. "Borrowing" a connector from another unused cable and grafting it onto the Epson cable near the motherboard end should allow him to use the old cable in a current or less vintage PC, and the drives themselves will also function just fine off a modern ATX power supply (assuming they still work, which they probably do if they were working when the machine was decommissioned).
Just make sure that you put the connector on the right way, or you'll find yourself taking it back off to flip it over. The red stripe down the side of the cable represents Pin 1, as does the little white arrow on the motherboard. You will know you did it backward if the floppy lights come on at power-up and never go out. (No this won't break anything.)
Mal-2
Is the actual computer worth the effort, or are you just going for a retro look and feel? If it's the latter, gut it and shoehorn in a modern microATX board and ATX power supply. If the power switch is a pushbutton "memory" type, then it uses a paperclip-like wire to "remember" whether it should be on or off. Just remove this wire and it will become a momentary pushbutton, which will function perfectly as an ATX power button. (Sure it's overkill to use a 240V 15A switch as a momentary pushbutton, but what else are you going to use it for?) I'm sure you can figure out how to attach a hard drive to some surface, and hack the back panel to match the motherboard and power supply.
For the monitor, you could find a SVGA CRT monitor and swap the shells -- if you consider this important enough. Otherwise, just get some old CRT from the thrift store and clean it up. Chances are nobody other than a fellow geek would notice the anachronism.
The keyboard is likely hardwired for XT keystrokes, but if it has an XT/AT switch somewhere, you can stick an AT-PS2 adapter on it and keep using it.
The floppy drives can be connected to a modern PC's floppy controller with the original cable. The floppy controller spec has not changed in at least a decade, and support for 360k floppies was never dropped. Since floppies (even the 1.44 MB variety) are almost useless, there is no point in improving the existing drives. Just make them work if you are so inclined. You may want to sacrifice one to free up a bay for an optical drive anyway.
If you decided you really wanted to run software of the appropriate age, you still could -- just fire up DOSbox.
Mal-2
One of the two setups is a real office desk, and the other (which I am using now) is a coffee table that is much lower but equally as deep.
I have a picture of the desk setup posted. It has changed slightly (the large speakers have been swapped for smaller ones, the computer speakers are gone, and a USB hub has been added) but the basic setup remains as shown. The monitor sits as far back as possible without pulling the desk away from the wall (more than the inch necessary for cable clearance). In what manner would you consider this setup inadequate?
The living room setup on the coffee table has an identical monitor except for the lack of a spring-loaded base. This also hovers above its associated amplifier. This is less than ideal ergonomically because the table is so low, but it's a coffee table, not a work desk.
Mal-2
> * Single-data-rate DVI maxes out somewhere in the neighborhood of 1920x1080. I'm not sure whether 1920x1080 is slightly below its max, or pushing it slightly beyond its official max, but I know it's pretty close to the limit one way or another. Going higher means you need double data rate...
True, but largely irrelevant unless you insist on recycling your single-link DVI cables.
> which also probably means an ungodly expensive cable, and quite possibly a more expensive video card (unless you normally buy top of the line video cards).
Not true at all. Even my GeForce 6200 did dual-link DVI, and a 10 foot cable cost me $18. I would not exactly call that "ungodly expensive", since 10 foot cables are somewhat exotic. The normal 6 foot (actually 2 meter) length was $10.
Mal-2
I do not presume to speak for parent poster, only for myself.
> Do you keep your LCD further away from you than you would a crt?
Yes. The screen surface is about 7 inches further from my face than it was when I had CRTs. Because the pixel density is slightly lower and the pixels themselves are much better defined, it does not cause a problem at all.
> Do you put things behind your LCD?
No, they're pushed back to the wall or (in the living room) perched precariously on the edge of the table. There is no space behind them to be reclaimed. I have gained the seven inches they've been pushed back, and there is no bulky case sticking out over the edge of the table to get bumped when walking by.
> If the answer to those is "no" then you could use a 100lb trinitron and you wouldn't be "killing any space" more than you would with a 5lb LCD.
Yes, I would. I am able to perch the LCDs in such a manner that the space under them that is not consumed by the base is usable for other things. I stick speakers to the bases of my work monitors, and I let my monitors at home "hover" over my amplifiers while using the base space for USB hubs. Granted, I was able to stick a USB hub to the top of a CRT as well, but then I had to stand up to plug or unplug anything.
Mal-2
I have tried screen rotation, and at least on the Samsung monitors I have had (which are/were TN) it makes the tearing effect of screen refreshes VERY noticeable. In portrait mode it is not noticeable at all. This was true of the 20" 4:3 (1600x1200) and is true of the 23" 16:9 (2048x1152). The thing is, with the 23" I no longer NEED two monitors. I still have two of them but they are in different rooms running a cloned display, along with duplicate mice and keyboards. I can float between the rooms at will and never have to worry about switching computers.
At work I have two 17" Sony panels rotated. Fortunately the bases have a VESA-standard mount, and all it took to rotate them was to remove four screws, re-orient the base, and put the four screws back in. I do not notice any tearing effects, but I do have to sacrifice ClearType. Unfortunately, Office 2007 likes to override my ClearType preferences and I had to do the registry hack to get around that. Needless to say, ClearType looks AWFUL on a rotated monitor.
I used to have an asymmetric setup, with a rotated 17" and the 20" Samsung not rotated. Unfortunately I broke the 20" -- but fortunately found the 23" when searching for a replacement. BOTH 23" monitors together cost me only about $80 more than a single 20" 4:3 monitor would have. Also, the 23" monitors have relatively small bases compared to the display size, so I can use a good deal of the space underneath them for other things such as my amplifiers (again one per room, one audiophile quality and one somewhat less), and I use the space on the base for my USB hubs.
Mal-2
I went to a party on July 4 where the directions were clearly given, along with the admonition "Do not follow Google Maps or your GPS, or you will likely end up on a road that will destroy your car." Even the road they recommended was pretty hard on the average passenger car, and it was one of the few times living in Los Angeles that I felt I had a significant benefit from having a 4WD vehicle. It's not like this was way out in the sticks either, it was just north of the 118 freeway in Chatsworth.
On the other hand, having access to real-time traffic reports was exceptionally useful yesterday when the 405 was slammed due to the fire near the Getty Center. It still took well over twice the usual time to get home, but at least I had the option of choosing the least heinous route.
Mal-2
What kind of loose? The passenger side visor in my car is loose in the sense that the visor will not willingly stay flush against the ceiling. My solution was way less than $400 -- I attached the hook side of a piece of Velcro to the visor. The cloth ceiling liner, plus what little resistance remains in the mechanism, is enough to keep the visor from drooping except in the most exceptional circumstances (like hitting a speed bump I didn't see at 45 mph).
For $400 I think a little ghetto-rigging is in order, as long as you can do it in a way that will go unnoticed.
Mal-2
> So your owner there... he wants 200 10 pound bags, good... good...easy enough...
>
> How many ounces is that? Tons?
Ounces? Why does that matter here? Just like grams, the number is large enough to be out of most humans' grasp. That's why we HAVE larger and smaller units.
Tons? One. One short ton, that is.
Mal-2
Drywall comes in 4 foot by 8 foot slabs. That is why the stud spacing is in 12, 16, or 24 inch intervals -- so that the studs will align with the edges of the drywall.
Chicken and egg problem again.
Mal-2
This assumes your glass transmits that entire range, and that you like grain the size of golf balls in your prints.
I've done lots of existing light photography, and I either need to use fast glass (I have a 50 mm f/1.2 for just this purpose) or push process, even with the fastest films. Ektapress 1000 works reasonably well at 1600, if you tell the lab to push it (and they actually do). T-Max P3200 has tight grain, but a very pronounced halftoning effect (and of course it's monochrome) and it too needs to be pushed -- its natural rating is actually 1600. I've taken some spectacular stage and theater photos on T-Max P3200, and would go back to it in a heartbeat if that was the kind of shooting I needed to do.
Luckily, B/W chemistry is something you can do yourself, so it should not die any time soon.
Mal-2
I'm sure this had to do with the fact that Kodachrome is process E-4, not E-6 like other slide films -- it's a custom job, even in Los Angeles I generally mailed them to Colorado to be developed. As the film market itself dwindles, the smallest niches (such as E-4 process labs) are going to dry up first. Kodak considered this TEN YEARS AGO -- I'm surprised it took them this long.
Mal-2
> Why are enjoying science and gay sex mutually exclusive?
They aren't. It's just that you're applying two very selective filters at once, so few people are going to make it to the output stage.
Think about it this way: How many people care about your research? A few hundred? A few thousand? There's your first narrow filter.
Then you need one who is a homosexual male -- just for the sake of argument let's put that at 10% of the population, and assume your profession has a typical demographic. Even assuming your field is 80% male (the numbers don't change much even if it's 100% male), that means you just eliminated 92% of that few hundred or few thousand. At best you now have a few hundred candidates.
Then add in a filter you probably didn't consider -- they have to be close enough to actually meet and have sex with, and they have to speak at least fluent one language in common with you (you won't be able to talk shop in a pidgin dialect). Long distance relationships suck. Unless you are in a major hub location for your field, you can probably count the remaining candidates on one hand (in binary).
I think your best bet would be to apply the narrowest filter first -- start hanging out with people who care about asymmetric catalysis organic chemistry. Although most of them won't be interested, I know I (as a straight male) would have no objections to setting up two gay friends or acquaintances if I thought they'd like each other. I've done it before.
If it turns out my dating version of the Drake equation proves horribly wrong and there are millions of such candidates out there, then invoke Rule 34 and get rich. Or as George Carlin put it, "nail together two things that have never been nailed together before, and some shmuck will buy it."
Mal-2
First, note that a single download is worth 3 and a third dead people. Obviously something is a bit out of kilter here, but let's assume at this point that it is the valuation of dead people.
At $80,000 per song, I estimate the value of my hard drive at $1.8 BILLION dollars. Yes, billion with a B. By that logic, I should be able to copy my collection onto cheap external hard drives (Seagate's outlet store was just selling them for $25) and mail them out to five people. Those people would then pass on the billions of free dollars to five others, and so on, and so on, and so on... Just think about it, no more foreclosed homes, no more poverty, no more hunger!
What you say? It's imaginary money? But the judicial system just ruled it real!
ALL YOUR BASS ARE BELONG TO US.
Mal-2
It is only a matter of time, and it doesn't matter if the U.S. government does it first or not. Admittedly, throwing money at the problem accelerates the process, but it's going to happen regardless. As you pointed out, once the R&D is done it won't be difficult or expensive to make them. The U.S. is not the only party interested in such devices -- do you propose to stop China from throwing money at the problem? These aren't big, ugly nukes, and a disarmament treaty isn't going to stop them from being made because it can't be effectively enforced. The only way to enforce a ban on assassin drones would be to shoot down anything that flies, every time. No more air travel, no more birds, no more R/C planes. Any one of these could actually be a weapon in disguise.
This cat was out of the bag a long time ago. We just didn't realize it. When a country convinced pilots to fly their planes into warships, it was over -- we have replaced the pilots with cameras and radio links, which was rather inevitable. If a technology CAN be weaponized, it WILL be weaponized, somewhere, by someone.
Mal-2
> It is not a ladder, or a tree or a chain, it's more of a bush.
If we keep pruning it to our liking, it's more of a topiary, isn't it?
Mal-2
Benzene is conductive because it has "floating" double bonds in its six-carbon ring. This may leave enough electrons free to conduct between buckyballs.
Mal-2
The upside of it being in orbit around L2 is that it never has to face either the earth or the sun, so every second of every day is useful observation time. Hubble is in LEO which makes it accessible, but also shielded by the bulk of the planet almost half of every day for any given target. This is fine for scheduled observations, but not so good for staring at one point or homing in on something in progress. Also, some time is inevitably lost making sure it doesn't stare into something bright as it swings around the planet, which is not an issue at L2.
Even if it does not live as long as Hubble (and it probably won't if there is no servicing), it has the potential to produce more data per unit of time. Also, with the bigger reflector, exposures should not take as long, also freeing it up to do more science. This also has the nice side effect of reducing the effects of thermal noise and cosmic rays, since they just don't have as much time to do their damage to any given picture.
Mal-2