I think you meant 'per square foot of wall', right? And did you take into account 4, 5, or 6 of the faces of a cube? Minus windows and doors?
The amount of light this would put out would be enormous. Figuring about half a million lumens (which are not exactly a measurement of intensity, like lux or footcandles would be) you're looking at the equivalent of around 120 of those 100W fluorescent tubes. That kind of light is what lights an entire large department store like K-Mart, Best Buy, Staples or Media Play to appreciable brightness. If all that light were concentrated upon one spot, that spot would be something around 500 times brighter than a bright white cloud on a sunny day at noon. (The cloud would be 3,500 footlambert, or 1,114 candela/square foot) The darkest object you would be able to see with that in your vision (assuming your eyes could adjust to such intense light levels) would still be brighter than daylight. You would pretty much go blind instantly when you flipped the light switch. But you could light up an entire department store / street with it.
If you don't want to wait, you could build a simple Fresnel lens projector for around $40. Get some foam board for mounting, some kind of gaffer's tape or duct tape, and a cheap sheet lens - and fill your wall with your monitor/tv image. Sure, it's not a "smart" wall, but it's a whole lot cheaper and you own some of the parts already.
Well, that's assuming you can rotate your screen image 180 degrees without breaking your monitor. These lenses do invert images, and I won't get into optical science. AFAIK NVidia cards in Windows have a Rotation setting in their control panel, and mplayer has a command line option for this. Most monitors don't like being rotated (magnetic adjustment yokes are set properly for being upright) and will break if you leave them upside down and powered on.
Whoops, looks like a misinterpretation of the commercial.
Will Auto Zone put what's essentially an SCO Tax on car parts if they have to pay up?? Better get your fuzzy dice now before they add five cents to the price of everything...
Of course, since SCO has not proved ownership of the code yet, I expect this to get thrown out of court fairly quickly. Auto Zone can afford good lawyers.
First, consider replacing your fans with larger fans if possible, or adding fans in those 'optional case fan' locations so many cases have. I'm not sure if G5 cases have these, but you should check. Get your local computer guy to check if you don't know what to look for.
If your fans don't have to work as hard, they won't make as much noise. Remember, two 40dB fans will be MUCH quieter than one 50 or 60dB fan, since decibels are an exponential measurement: those two 40dB fans should add up to ~41dB.
You could make a DIY extra fan port with a drill, but be careful not to interfere with the direction of airflow in your case too much. That'll definitely void your warranty.
Second, go to your local Staples and see if they carry the Antec noise reduction kit. It should be in the middle of short aisle 1 near the modems and memory, right above or near the Antec power supplies. That's if your Staples is anything like the one I work at. It has rubber mounts for the fans, drives, and power supply. A rubber-mounted case fan is much quieter than one that's just screwed tightly into the metal, since the rubber absorbs the vibrations that the sides of your case would amplify. The product might have been a promotional item for Christmastime but we seem to keep getting them.
Finally: Check out Frozen CPU or read up on cooling at Anandtech, TweakTown, or any of the overclocking forums.
Remember, don't attempt any replacements without matching the voltages and sizes. If you don't know your fan's size, bring it with you when you go shopping. Anyone care to post on how to measure a fan? I seem to remember their size being the length of one side, and they are square.
A big factor in my favorite skill-based games is the duration of your minimum session. The tedious leveling process of most games lengthens that minimum session from your average "I've got a couple minutes to kill" into the "Whoops, is that the sun coming up" timespan. This really narrows down the number of ADD/ADHD people (ahem) who would be interested.
For example: * Super Smash Bros. Melee - five minutes, and a match is over. I've seen fifteen in rare circumstances. Skills make the butt-kicking your opponent deserves in a revenge match much easier. * Pacman, Galaga, Space Invaders, Breakout, etc - Classic, because you could just put a quarter in and play for a few minutes. No leveling, just gameplay. Skill could gain you some extra points or even more lives/whatever. * Mario Bros, Donkey Kong - Good for a few quick minutes of fun. Quick reversals and timing make you "good." * Outrun, Pole Position, etc - Drive for a few minutes, and it's done. Pure brain-numbing racing fun. * UT, Counterstrike, Q3A - Play a few minutes of fragging and go. Although, having a good 3D card can sometimes provide the illusion of skill due to higher responsiveness and vision quality.
In summary:
A critical element of games is the length you have to play them before you can safely get up and leave. These games are usually skill-based, since a few minutes can't possibly give you any fancy EXP-based advantages.
You could try MAngband if you want to play an online dungeon hack and slash game that tests your reflexes. Fight the forces of Morgoth in realtime... in ASCII form! Available in source code and binary form for just about all platforms.
Well, seriously, Angband (a roguelike) is fun as heck when you're playing it in realtime, and that giant grey P is blazing across your screen. There's a certain element of "Quick! Get me my red coat... and my brown pants!" to running away from large packs of hounds/demons/summoners on sight, too.
The title "Computer Engineering" can mean so many things, though.
I know it was all about the internal computers from microwaves, stereos, etc. where I went to school. CE people had a very good combination of IT, CS, and various microprocessor-related engineering skills.
Red Mercury, huh? Well, they seem to know how to hook the average Joe Sixpack in... by quoting the CIA right away. Is this some kind of joke, or some kind of scam, or some horrible combination of the two? At the very least it looks like you'd be paying for the privilege of causing self-induced FUD.
You should create software packages (tarball, please) for your great-sounding glue apps, and share them with the rest of us. Or, maybe make a website with the scripts or a how-to guide. I'd be interested to play with it for sure!
You had vacuum tubes? Back in my day, we didn't have electricity. We had to use colored rocks, and those were hard to find because the world was in black and white, and sometimes one of us would get eaten by a mountain lion! And we were thankful!
Instead of spending ages in a fruitless search for the elusive Awesome Game for the Macintosh, you could learn how to program, and make or port your own games.
Or you could play MAngband and enjoy some fine multiplayer roguelike action. I know it's been ported to OSX. You just have to look for it on the forums there.
Is anyone else having trouble with the Samurai Jack page rendering properly in Firebird 0.7? I've had this same problem off and on with Sharky Extreme as well.
That's one of my favorite cartoons of all time. I hope they keep it true to the cartoon. "Samurai Jack! Watchout!"
All of the screen shots seem a little washed out, even more so than the cartoon. That's a little disappointing, even if it's for some bright dramatic light effects when you whack something with your sword. Would an iris effect help out with the limited range of brightnesses?
Has anyone else noticed that a bunch of console reverse-engineers, especially from the emulation and linux-porting camps, have been hired to code on the very systems they were hacking? Thus preventing them from releasing new material, and slowing or even halting development of their work.
All said, this is a very cool idea and I wish the best to the developers. I'd love to see a usable Linux on a console. It would be even better if it was possible to use standard CDR media to do it.
I have an idea for this. Would it be possible to use the Dual Shock controller as a mouse, and have a button show an onscreen keyboard in X, so we can at least login via *DM and use our favorite desktops?
There is a second plug on the back of any decent power supply. It's the inverted format plug, so you need a special cable for it. Most people just use it for their monitor, but other uses such as desk lamps and USB hubs are certainly not out of the question. You just have to find the proper cable or adapter at your local electronics shop.
A decent 'powerstrip' aka surge protector or a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply, even better because they protect against all forms of power instability) will give you at least six plugs. I've seen seven and higher on the truly massive ones. Some UPSes have eight. Those are typically in the 1000+ volt $120-$190 US range. You'll get a good half hour on your computer out of those. Power supplies aren't supposed to be daisychained, especially in the case of UPSes, but you can definitely daisychain two good surge strips to get extra outlets for a lamp, an alarm clock, and maybe one or two other low power devices. In my experience. I'd never suggest more than three strips coming out of one two-plug wall outlet, or more than two out of one wall outlet plug. Your mileage may vary. Don't tell your local electrical inspector or you might get in trouble. This can easily become a fire hazard, especially when it heats up when you draw a lot of power! Oh, and plugging a surge strip into your UPS will void the warranty.
Combo scan & fax printers are more commonly known as "All-in-One Machines" or "Multi-Function Machines" in the office world. They usually function as copiers, faxes, scanners, and printers. Some have telephones and more built in, and you can get laser all-in-ones for pretty cheap these days. If you use a UPS, you must have one good UPS dedicated solely to the printer/scanner/all-in-one machine or you'll void your warranty. That's what my UPS manual tells me, anyway. I'd suggest at least a 450 volt UPS for that.
I work at Staples. We have a bunch of cable organizers in our stores, in the electronics department. Just go there and have a look at what your options are. We've got the basic ideas covered.
Uh-oh, here comes your reward for noticing that...
One day, a man from the Czech Republic came to visit his friend in New York.
When asked what he wanted to see, the visitor replied, "I would like to see one of the zoos in America."
To his delight, the New Yorker took him to the Bronx Zoo. They were touring the zoo, and standing in front of the gorilla cage, when one of the gorillas busted out of the cage and swallowed the Czech whole.
Shocked, his friend from New York quickly called over the zoo keeper. He quickly explained the situation and the zoo keeper immediately took steps to save the man's friend. The zoo keeper got an axe and asked the man, "OK, which gorilla did it? Was it the male or the female?" The New Yorker pointed out the female as the culprit. Quickly, the zoo keeper split the female gorilla open and found nothing of the Czech.
He looked at the man from New York, who shrugged and said, "Guess the Czech is in the male."
007: What do you have for me today, Q?
Q: Well, I had a bugger of a time getting all the software mail-ordered, but I have finally finished this Macintosh powered car. It goes from zero to Sad Mac in under two seconds.
007: I think I'll stick with my Aston Martin, thanks.
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Update: ATI's Catalyst 4.3 now does rotation, too, in 90 degree increments. So you can easily compensate for the lens with your display control panel!
Yes!!!!
I was figuring on the measured light from your average tube, not the equivalent of a 100% efficient tube. But thanks for bringing up the point.
I think you meant 'per square foot of wall', right? And did you take into account 4, 5, or 6 of the faces of a cube? Minus windows and doors?
The amount of light this would put out would be enormous. Figuring about half a million lumens (which are not exactly a measurement of intensity, like lux or footcandles would be) you're looking at the equivalent of around 120 of those 100W fluorescent tubes. That kind of light is what lights an entire large department store like K-Mart, Best Buy, Staples or Media Play to appreciable brightness. If all that light were concentrated upon one spot, that spot would be something around 500 times brighter than a bright white cloud on a sunny day at noon. (The cloud would be 3,500 footlambert, or 1,114 candela/square foot) The darkest object you would be able to see with that in your vision (assuming your eyes could adjust to such intense light levels) would still be brighter than daylight. You would pretty much go blind instantly when you flipped the light switch. But you could light up an entire department store / street with it.
If you don't want to wait, you could build a simple Fresnel lens projector for around $40. Get some foam board for mounting, some kind of gaffer's tape or duct tape, and a cheap sheet lens - and fill your wall with your monitor/tv image. Sure, it's not a "smart" wall, but it's a whole lot cheaper and you own some of the parts already.
Well, that's assuming you can rotate your screen image 180 degrees without breaking your monitor. These lenses do invert images, and I won't get into optical science. AFAIK NVidia cards in Windows have a Rotation setting in their control panel, and mplayer has a command line option for this. Most monitors don't like being rotated (magnetic adjustment yokes are set properly for being upright) and will break if you leave them upside down and powered on.
"Get in the ZONE! AUTO ZONE!"
Whoops, looks like a misinterpretation of the commercial.
Will Auto Zone put what's essentially an SCO Tax on car parts if they have to pay up?? Better get your fuzzy dice now before they add five cents to the price of everything...
Of course, since SCO has not proved ownership of the code yet, I expect this to get thrown out of court fairly quickly. Auto Zone can afford good lawyers.
I have some solid advice.
First, consider replacing your fans with larger fans if possible, or adding fans in those 'optional case fan' locations so many cases have. I'm not sure if G5 cases have these, but you should check. Get your local computer guy to check if you don't know what to look for.
If your fans don't have to work as hard, they won't make as much noise. Remember, two 40dB fans will be MUCH quieter than one 50 or 60dB fan, since decibels are an exponential measurement: those two 40dB fans should add up to ~41dB.
You could make a DIY extra fan port with a drill, but be careful not to interfere with the direction of airflow in your case too much. That'll definitely void your warranty.
Second, go to your local Staples and see if they carry the Antec noise reduction kit. It should be in the middle of short aisle 1 near the modems and memory, right above or near the Antec power supplies. That's if your Staples is anything like the one I work at. It has rubber mounts for the fans, drives, and power supply. A rubber-mounted case fan is much quieter than one that's just screwed tightly into the metal, since the rubber absorbs the vibrations that the sides of your case would amplify. The product might have been a promotional item for Christmastime but we seem to keep getting them.
Finally: Check out Frozen CPU or read up on cooling at Anandtech, TweakTown, or any of the overclocking forums.
Remember, don't attempt any replacements without matching the voltages and sizes. If you don't know your fan's size, bring it with you when you go shopping. Anyone care to post on how to measure a fan? I seem to remember their size being the length of one side, and they are square.
A big factor in my favorite skill-based games is the duration of your minimum session. The tedious leveling process of most games lengthens that minimum session from your average "I've got a couple minutes to kill" into the "Whoops, is that the sun coming up" timespan. This really narrows down the number of ADD/ADHD people (ahem) who would be interested.
For example:
* Super Smash Bros. Melee - five minutes, and a match is over. I've seen fifteen in rare circumstances. Skills make the butt-kicking your opponent deserves in a revenge match much easier.
* Pacman, Galaga, Space Invaders, Breakout, etc - Classic, because you could just put a quarter in and play for a few minutes. No leveling, just gameplay. Skill could gain you some extra points or even more lives/whatever.
* Mario Bros, Donkey Kong - Good for a few quick minutes of fun. Quick reversals and timing make you "good."
* Outrun, Pole Position, etc - Drive for a few minutes, and it's done. Pure brain-numbing racing fun.
* UT, Counterstrike, Q3A - Play a few minutes of fragging and go. Although, having a good 3D card can sometimes provide the illusion of skill due to higher responsiveness and vision quality.
In summary:
A critical element of games is the length you have to play them before you can safely get up and leave. These games are usually skill-based, since a few minutes can't possibly give you any fancy EXP-based advantages.
You could try MAngband if you want to play an online dungeon hack and slash game that tests your reflexes. Fight the forces of Morgoth in realtime... in ASCII form! Available in source code and binary form for just about all platforms.
Well, seriously, Angband (a roguelike) is fun as heck when you're playing it in realtime, and that giant grey P is blazing across your screen. There's a certain element of "Quick! Get me my red coat... and my brown pants!" to running away from large packs of hounds/demons/summoners on sight, too.
The title "Computer Engineering" can mean so many things, though.
I know it was all about the internal computers from microwaves, stereos, etc. where I went to school. CE people had a very good combination of IT, CS, and various microprocessor-related engineering skills.
What does it mean to you?
Red Mercury, huh? Well, they seem to know how to hook the average Joe Sixpack in... by quoting the CIA right away. Is this some kind of joke, or some kind of scam, or some horrible combination of the two? At the very least it looks like you'd be paying for the privilege of causing self-induced FUD.
You should create software packages (tarball, please) for your great-sounding glue apps, and share them with the rest of us. Or, maybe make a website with the scripts or a how-to guide. I'd be interested to play with it for sure!
You had vacuum tubes? Back in my day, we didn't have electricity. We had to use colored rocks, and those were hard to find because the world was in black and white, and sometimes one of us would get eaten by a mountain lion! And we were thankful!
Well, here's a novel idea.
Instead of spending ages in a fruitless search for the elusive Awesome Game for the Macintosh, you could learn how to program, and make or port your own games.
Or you could play MAngband and enjoy some fine multiplayer roguelike action. I know it's been ported to OSX. You just have to look for it on the forums there.
Is anyone else having trouble with the Samurai Jack page rendering properly in Firebird 0.7? I've had this same problem off and on with Sharky Extreme as well.
That's one of my favorite cartoons of all time. I hope they keep it true to the cartoon. "Samurai Jack! Watchout!"
All of the screen shots seem a little washed out, even more so than the cartoon. That's a little disappointing, even if it's for some bright dramatic light effects when you whack something with your sword. Would an iris effect help out with the limited range of brightnesses?
Has anyone else noticed that a bunch of console reverse-engineers, especially from the emulation and linux-porting camps, have been hired to code on the very systems they were hacking? Thus preventing them from releasing new material, and slowing or even halting development of their work.
All said, this is a very cool idea and I wish the best to the developers. I'd love to see a usable Linux on a console. It would be even better if it was possible to use standard CDR media to do it.
I have an idea for this. Would it be possible to use the Dual Shock controller as a mouse, and have a button show an onscreen keyboard in X, so we can at least login via *DM and use our favorite desktops?
There is a second plug on the back of any decent power supply. It's the inverted format plug, so you need a special cable for it. Most people just use it for their monitor, but other uses such as desk lamps and USB hubs are certainly not out of the question. You just have to find the proper cable or adapter at your local electronics shop. A decent 'powerstrip' aka surge protector or a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply, even better because they protect against all forms of power instability) will give you at least six plugs. I've seen seven and higher on the truly massive ones. Some UPSes have eight. Those are typically in the 1000+ volt $120-$190 US range. You'll get a good half hour on your computer out of those. Power supplies aren't supposed to be daisychained, especially in the case of UPSes, but you can definitely daisychain two good surge strips to get extra outlets for a lamp, an alarm clock, and maybe one or two other low power devices. In my experience. I'd never suggest more than three strips coming out of one two-plug wall outlet, or more than two out of one wall outlet plug. Your mileage may vary. Don't tell your local electrical inspector or you might get in trouble. This can easily become a fire hazard, especially when it heats up when you draw a lot of power! Oh, and plugging a surge strip into your UPS will void the warranty. Combo scan & fax printers are more commonly known as "All-in-One Machines" or "Multi-Function Machines" in the office world. They usually function as copiers, faxes, scanners, and printers. Some have telephones and more built in, and you can get laser all-in-ones for pretty cheap these days. If you use a UPS, you must have one good UPS dedicated solely to the printer/scanner/all-in-one machine or you'll void your warranty. That's what my UPS manual tells me, anyway. I'd suggest at least a 450 volt UPS for that.
I work at Staples. We have a bunch of cable organizers in our stores, in the electronics department. Just go there and have a look at what your options are. We've got the basic ideas covered.
Uh-oh, here comes your reward for noticing that... One day, a man from the Czech Republic came to visit his friend in New York. When asked what he wanted to see, the visitor replied, "I would like to see one of the zoos in America." To his delight, the New Yorker took him to the Bronx Zoo. They were touring the zoo, and standing in front of the gorilla cage, when one of the gorillas busted out of the cage and swallowed the Czech whole. Shocked, his friend from New York quickly called over the zoo keeper. He quickly explained the situation and the zoo keeper immediately took steps to save the man's friend. The zoo keeper got an axe and asked the man, "OK, which gorilla did it? Was it the male or the female?" The New Yorker pointed out the female as the culprit. Quickly, the zoo keeper split the female gorilla open and found nothing of the Czech. He looked at the man from New York, who shrugged and said, "Guess the Czech is in the male."
Or, perhaps in another fantasy hero's life...
From an upcoming cancelled James Bond film:
007: What do you have for me today, Q?
Q: Well, I had a bugger of a time getting all the software mail-ordered, but I have finally finished this Macintosh powered car. It goes from zero to Sad Mac in under two seconds.
007: I think I'll stick with my Aston Martin, thanks.
Sure, it drives, but can it run Windows? (ducks) Not to mention the potential driver conflicts resulting in fatal errors...