I didn't realize it was a popularity contest. If you're after social affirmation, go watch 'American Idol'. Most of 'us' are happy being social outcasts.
There are literally thousands of people doing fun / dangerous / odd things with screwdrivers, soldering irons, plasma cutters, welders and JTAG programmers. Not too many people making hovercraft either now or in the past and that's why it was on the cover of Pop Mechanics. Yeah it's different - there are so many neat things to play with that I tend to run in circles around various projects. You can build thousands of little weird electronic things with PicBasic, Basic Stamp, Arduino's (spelling?), plain ol microprocessors that cost 1.19 apiece. You can download PCB making programs for free, same with SPICE circuit emulators. You can learn TIG welding at pretty much any vocational school, community college or just in your back yard (note to self, get welder out of kitchen before wife comes back).
There is more woodworking knowledge on the Internet than ever existed in any one craftsman's head. You can design a boat, plane or rocket and build one from a kit or from scratch.
And yes, the vast majority of human beings aren't interested in this. My wife is happy as long as 1) I keep the 'stuff' downstairs and 2) I don't trash the network. She's not interested in anything other than the fact that I can keep the cars and boats running (mostly). Talk to High school students about this you get one out of a hundred that thinks anything is interesting. It's a niche interest / hobby / lifestyle, but I was always surprised how many people (men anyway) could be found at the Boeing Reserve Property Center (bits of everything old and aeronautic, eventually killed by the idiot suits who run YoYoDyne^HBoeing these days).
Not to worry too much. If there are people putting things together, there will always be a few taking them apart.
(Damn, that 3D printer looks cool. Wonder where I could put it.)
Well, I read it as the "Alien Telescope" and started to wonder if funding problems were universal, so to speak. Then I looked it up - Alien telescope is actually pretty close, but it's named after Paul Allen (the Microsoft Billionaire that has his own submarine, etc).
Yeah that was my thought too. Although you could consider defrag to be a secure destruct mechanism...;)
That's the beauty of this sort of thing. Not for storing your routine Porn^HDocuments, but for really sensitive stuff that can be destroyed quickly and 'innocently'.
"Well, sir, the computer was running a bit slow, so I defragged it yesterday. Is that a problem?"
Unfortunately (and more or less completely off topic), AC is correct. The entire Middle East is Bat Shit Insane. And has been for several thousands of years. And likely will be as long as it exists. Too many people. Too much history. Too human and too much damned oil.
So if the representatives don't decide where the money is going who does?
Is it someone better informed than the representative?
Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that the Senator from Texas who couldn't differentiate between the Internet and a Striped Bass should determine where a facility for making rocket boosters should be placed? How much money should be given to a certain company / region / university before the engineering proposals have even been started? That's not representative government, it's micromanagement and the only reason for it is to shore up political support. It's the country sucking up to the big teat that the Federal government has become.
It seems like everyone is opposed to earmarks besides Ron Paul, and I figured the rest have nothing but selfish interests in mind, so it just seemed statistically more likely that he was correct.
WTF? That statement is wrong at so many levels that my brain is starting to short out attempting to parse it.
Oh boy, $130million to create new energy solutions. That about what the computer systems in an SR-71 Blackbird costs. Guess the DoD will have to go without until next year's budget. Seriously though this is pathetic. $130million isn't shit. It's a laughable sum for any kind of major research project, let alone what is arguably the most important human challenge being faced today. Even $130bn would be too little spent in my opinion.
Yep. About as much as it costs to run a Nimitz class aircraft carrier for half a year. A truly outstanding commitment to energy research.
Because if man is to survive as a species, we must leave this planet. To leave this planet, we must advance the state of the art. To advance the state of the art, we must spend money on human space exploration/colonization.
Deficits will never go away, and neither will the fact that the sun will eventually incinerate the earth.
If your worried about the sun going nova, then take a couple of deep breaths and relax. We've got time. Although I strongly support the space program, we would do better as a species if we realized that we're NOT getting off this rock anytime soon and we'd best spend some energy keeping what we've got habitable.
Supporting the space program could be done without materially increasing the deficit (NASA takes up some tiny fraction of the US budget at present). But it really bugs me when congresscritters put up stupid bills like this one. You get all sorts of earmarks and pork embedded in it, you get NASA (or whatever organization) pulled in all sorts of usually contradictory ways. You get things changing from year to year. If someone came up with a bill that funded NASA with x% of the Federal Budget for 50 years, maybe I could go for that but the current bill is just grandstanding and appeasing his constituents.
Be sure you're talking about the Nuclear Power that TEPCO is using. Liquid Salt Thorium and Pebble Bed Reactors don't pose the risks you mention, for example.
Liquid Salt Thorium and Pebble Bed reactors don't exist as commercial products. That's a subtle, but important distinction. While it's potentially possible that some nuclear technology might be relatively safe and non polluting there is very little push to have any industrial level research. Supposedly, the Indians are working on a Thorium based reactor. The Chinese are trying to improve current PWR designs. But MOST of the plants running in the world are older style BWRs or PWRs. And up until Fukushima most of the utilities were hell bent on keeping them going past their original design lives. Now that this behavior has suddenly become politically unpopular, you either have to decommission the things or ???? (who knows what).
We've boxed ourselves in quite nicely as far as nuclear power goes. Long term prevarication by governments and industry has left us with few useful choices in the short term. And the long term is quite a bit away. Might as well work on improving solar and wind.
Next time someone makes fun by shouting authentically "Fire! Fire! Run!" in a theater or some other 'suitable' place, and your relatives die there having been crushed by the panicking crowd trying to get out, maybe then you'll remember that there are certain situations where Freedom of Speech is limited, and rightfully so, precisely to prevent panic and to save lives.
BTW, the above behavior is illegal in the EU (spreading false alarms) -- don't know about the US. This seems to be the case in Japan too.
True enough, but even the most idiotic, hyperbolic rant on the Internet doesn't equate to yelling "fire" in a theater. Otherwise most of the garbage that passes for "news" in the US would end up yielding criminal charges. The Japanese government (or whatever subset is responsible for this) just doesn't get the Internet. They should go back to being to not being responsible for Gundam.
For me, the most desireable remote control would be via by touch-screen smartphone. It's small, can use touchscreen gestures, (or motion gestures if you wished), has a usable touchscreen keyboard (for searching and direct channel access), and is a usable size. If the damn thing had an IR transmitter, it would be perfect. I used to use my Palm Treo for this, but its IR transmitter was very poor.
Saint Steve has your every desire satisfied. Well, some of them, anyway.
Yeah, I thought of that. Unfortunately my scanner doesn't do transparencies very well. I've seen some of the newer Epsons that get close to dedicated film scanners with transparencies. May have to upgrade. I have a nice Coolscan for 35 mm transparencies but I've not been able to build an adequate film holder.
It's not like inhaled lead particulates are good for you.... The uranium replaces lead which isn't such a great metal to grind into dust and spray around the environment.
Totally off topic, but if anybody knows of a system that can (easily) digitize Viewmaster slides, I'd love to know. I've got close to 1000 slowly decomposing.
The infamous iPhone log file records your complete geo-location history since you started using your phone.
Unless the iPhoneTracker app is doing it wrong, that's not entirely true. My logs seems to be a fairly random and very incomplete picture of where the phone has been. Haven't had time to look at the actual log data, but this scenario seems to be pretty common.
My fear is that Apple is not telling because it is a basis for some sort of scary experimental feature that they want to keep secret for the time being.
Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
--
While I like your idea, I'm not sure it holds water. My logs completely miss several out of state trips where I used the phone extensively. Especially when I was in LA, I used Google Maps for multiple hours a day for several days. Not a peep on the output. Analyze that!
My credit card data has much better info on where I've been. While any random Russian hacker probably can't get at it, I'm sure it's available for a reasonable price the the appropriate persons.
Mine has me in various locations around my local town. And then, in several small villages in SE Alaska (Hoonah, Kake) that I have not visited in several years. I'm quite certain I had a different phone at that time. All I can think of is that the Kake and Hoonah repeaters picked up my signal when I was up in the alpine country on a hike or perhaps more likely, flying in a small plane. It's completely missing several trips to Seattle and California. Pretty random, actually.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't realize it was a popularity contest. If you're after social affirmation, go watch 'American Idol'. Most of 'us' are happy being social outcasts.
Oh come on now guys. This is observer bias.
There are literally thousands of people doing fun / dangerous / odd things with screwdrivers, soldering irons, plasma cutters, welders and JTAG programmers. Not too many people making hovercraft either now or in the past and that's why it was on the cover of Pop Mechanics. Yeah it's different - there are so many neat things to play with that I tend to run in circles around various projects. You can build thousands of little weird electronic things with PicBasic, Basic Stamp, Arduino's (spelling?), plain ol microprocessors that cost 1.19 apiece. You can download PCB making programs for free, same with SPICE circuit emulators. You can learn TIG welding at pretty much any vocational school, community college or just in your back yard (note to self, get welder out of kitchen before wife comes back).
There is more woodworking knowledge on the Internet than ever existed in any one craftsman's head. You can design a boat, plane or rocket and build one from a kit or from scratch.
And yes, the vast majority of human beings aren't interested in this. My wife is happy as long as 1) I keep the 'stuff' downstairs and 2) I don't trash the network. She's not interested in anything other than the fact that I can keep the cars and boats running (mostly). Talk to High school students about this you get one out of a hundred that thinks anything is interesting. It's a niche interest / hobby / lifestyle, but I was always surprised how many people (men anyway) could be found at the Boeing Reserve Property Center (bits of everything old and aeronautic, eventually killed by the idiot suits who run YoYoDyne^HBoeing these days).
Not to worry too much. If there are people putting things together, there will always be a few taking them apart.
(Damn, that 3D printer looks cool. Wonder where I could put it.)
Well, I read it as the "Alien Telescope" and started to wonder if funding problems were universal, so to speak. Then I looked it up - Alien telescope is actually pretty close, but it's named after Paul Allen (the Microsoft Billionaire that has his own submarine, etc).
Reality sucks most of the time.
Yeah that was my thought too. Although you could consider defrag to be a secure destruct mechanism... ;)
That's the beauty of this sort of thing. Not for storing your routine Porn^HDocuments, but for really sensitive stuff that can be destroyed quickly and 'innocently'.
"Well, sir, the computer was running a bit slow, so I defragged it yesterday. Is that a problem?"
Unfortunately (and more or less completely off topic), AC is correct. The entire Middle East is Bat Shit Insane. And has been for several thousands of years. And likely will be as long as it exists. Too many people. Too much history. Too human and too much damned oil.
So if the representatives don't decide where the money is going who does? Is it someone better informed than the representative?
Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that the Senator from Texas who couldn't differentiate between the Internet and a Striped Bass should determine where a facility for making rocket boosters should be placed? How much money should be given to a certain company / region / university before the engineering proposals have even been started? That's not representative government, it's micromanagement and the only reason for it is to shore up political support. It's the country sucking up to the big teat that the Federal government has become.
It seems like everyone is opposed to earmarks besides Ron Paul, and I figured the rest have nothing but selfish interests in mind, so it just seemed statistically more likely that he was correct.
WTF? That statement is wrong at so many levels that my brain is starting to short out attempting to parse it.
Oh boy, $130million to create new energy solutions. That about what the computer systems in an SR-71 Blackbird costs. Guess the DoD will have to go without until next year's budget. Seriously though this is pathetic. $130million isn't shit. It's a laughable sum for any kind of major research project, let alone what is arguably the most important human challenge being faced today. Even $130bn would be too little spent in my opinion.
Yep. About as much as it costs to run a Nimitz class aircraft carrier for half a year. A truly outstanding commitment to energy research.
I am dissapoint.
Even if we make our existence on Earth perfectly sustainable, the sun will eventually go red giant.
Just a tip - DON'T use this as an excuse not to balance your checkbook.
Because if man is to survive as a species, we must leave this planet. To leave this planet, we must advance the state of the art. To advance the state of the art, we must spend money on human space exploration/colonization.
Deficits will never go away, and neither will the fact that the sun will eventually incinerate the earth.
If your worried about the sun going nova, then take a couple of deep breaths and relax. We've got time. Although I strongly support the space program, we would do better as a species if we realized that we're NOT getting off this rock anytime soon and we'd best spend some energy keeping what we've got habitable.
Supporting the space program could be done without materially increasing the deficit (NASA takes up some tiny fraction of the US budget at present). But it really bugs me when congresscritters put up stupid bills like this one. You get all sorts of earmarks and pork embedded in it, you get NASA (or whatever organization) pulled in all sorts of usually contradictory ways. You get things changing from year to year. If someone came up with a bill that funded NASA with x% of the Federal Budget for 50 years, maybe I could go for that but the current bill is just grandstanding and appeasing his constituents.
Be sure you're talking about the Nuclear Power that TEPCO is using. Liquid Salt Thorium and Pebble Bed Reactors don't pose the risks you mention, for example.
Liquid Salt Thorium and Pebble Bed reactors don't exist as commercial products. That's a subtle, but important distinction. While it's potentially possible that some nuclear technology might be relatively safe and non polluting there is very little push to have any industrial level research. Supposedly, the Indians are working on a Thorium based reactor. The Chinese are trying to improve current PWR designs. But MOST of the plants running in the world are older style BWRs or PWRs. And up until Fukushima most of the utilities were hell bent on keeping them going past their original design lives. Now that this behavior has suddenly become politically unpopular, you either have to decommission the things or ???? (who knows what).
We've boxed ourselves in quite nicely as far as nuclear power goes. Long term prevarication by governments and industry has left us with few useful choices in the short term. And the long term is quite a bit away. Might as well work on improving solar and wind.
Next time someone makes fun by shouting authentically "Fire! Fire! Run!" in a theater or some other 'suitable' place, and your relatives die there having been crushed by the panicking crowd trying to get out, maybe then you'll remember that there are certain situations where Freedom of Speech is limited, and rightfully so, precisely to prevent panic and to save lives.
BTW, the above behavior is illegal in the EU (spreading false alarms) -- don't know about the US. This seems to be the case in Japan too.
True enough, but even the most idiotic, hyperbolic rant on the Internet doesn't equate to yelling "fire" in a theater. Otherwise most of the garbage that passes for "news" in the US would end up yielding criminal charges. The Japanese government (or whatever subset is responsible for this) just doesn't get the Internet. They should go back to being to not being responsible for Gundam.
For me, the most desireable remote control would be via by touch-screen smartphone. It's small, can use touchscreen gestures, (or motion gestures if you wished), has a usable touchscreen keyboard (for searching and direct channel access), and is a usable size. If the damn thing had an IR transmitter, it would be perfect. I used to use my Palm Treo for this, but its IR transmitter was very poor.
Saint Steve has your every desire satisfied. Well, some of them, anyway.
Yeah, I thought of that. Unfortunately my scanner doesn't do transparencies very well. I've seen some of the newer Epsons that get close to dedicated film scanners with transparencies. May have to upgrade. I have a nice Coolscan for 35 mm transparencies but I've not been able to build an adequate film holder.
It's not like inhaled lead particulates are good for you .... The uranium replaces lead which isn't such a great metal to grind into dust and spray around the environment.
This is why we need sharks. With lasers.
Wow. Great.
Care to share what you're smoking with the rest of us?
Totally off topic, but if anybody knows of a system that can (easily) digitize Viewmaster slides, I'd love to know. I've got close to 1000 slowly decomposing.
How is this going to beat more open platforms like Amazon or (I assume) Google.
By not going offline for two days?
Apple? The folks with company that runs Mobile Mea Culpa? Who's email and hosting servers can, incredibly, stay up for weeks at a time?
Sir (or madam or whomever) you have a fine sense of the absurd.
Angry Birds could be the basis of one fantastic mortar app.
I think you need a nice drink. Have some Koolaid (Apple flavored!)
Maybe your VISA card transaction data will show you the same thing. Woops.
If your planning on doing something nefarious, pay cash and turn everything off.
The infamous iPhone log file records your complete geo-location history since you started using your phone.
Unless the iPhoneTracker app is doing it wrong, that's not entirely true. My logs seems to be a fairly random and very incomplete picture of where the phone has been. Haven't had time to look at the actual log data, but this scenario seems to be pretty common.
My fear is that Apple is not telling because it is a basis for some sort of scary experimental feature that they want to keep secret for the time being.
Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. --
While I like your idea, I'm not sure it holds water. My logs completely miss several out of state trips where I used the phone extensively. Especially when I was in LA, I used Google Maps for multiple hours a day for several days. Not a peep on the output. Analyze that!
My credit card data has much better info on where I've been. While any random Russian hacker probably can't get at it, I'm sure it's available for a reasonable price the the appropriate persons.
Mine has me in various locations around my local town. And then, in several small villages in SE Alaska (Hoonah, Kake) that I have not visited in several years. I'm quite certain I had a different phone at that time. All I can think of is that the Kake and Hoonah repeaters picked up my signal when I was up in the alpine country on a hike or perhaps more likely, flying in a small plane. It's completely missing several trips to Seattle and California. Pretty random, actually.