Has anyone found a anti-snoop HOWTO for building a new house?
While it's true that the only real protection from big brother is to be completely anonymous and not draw attention to one's self; I am more concerned with local busy-bodies (like the kind who get a kick out of listening in on wireless phone conversations.)
If anyone has a link to information on practical methods to shield a building, please post it. THX.
I think that growing replacement parts from a person's own tissues would be a great thing.
I also think that cloning individuals would be no different that spawning a twin of yourself.
What I dread are the failures that will occur along the road to perfecting the cloning technique. Yes, some will be detected early enough to abort, but some will not. Remember the lab in Alien Resurrection? Therefore I do not believe that we should continue to develop cloning of humans, because the price of the *inevitable* mistakes will be paid by innocent people - who never had a choice!! Isn't it bad enough that debilitating genetic disorders arise "naturally"? The whole think reeks of eugenics and Nazi contempt for individual human suffering.
I don't know about Abit, but a company named Promise has them. Look here:
http://www.aberdeeninc.com/abcatg/MB6601.htm
I use this model at home with a 40 Gig RAID. Also, Promise is reported to be introducing a newer version that supports ATA66 that will be released sometime in Aug of 99.
I for one fail to see the problem. How many "natural" impacts has the moon suffered since its formation? Does it really matter if an iron cored meteor fragment or a spacecraft causes the impact? That spacecraft was made from materials that can be found all over the solar system. Just because we've put it into a new and useful form doesn't make it any less of a natural object. This whole business of trash and littering is based in emotional reasoning. The real danger to our world isn't from the so-called litter, but from the concentration of substances which are toxic to life (substances which - by the way - already permeate the earth in a chemically fixed state). Every ounce of "industrial waste" and "trash" existed in some other state before we refined it. Even the nuclear wastes existed, but in a different atomic configuration.
Here's an example. A big corporation wants to dig an open copper mine about 100 miles from where I live. A byproduct of that effort would be a large holding basin of toxic material - a byproduct of the copper extraction method. Those toxins are already in the earth there, and the environment/ecosystem isn't the least bit affected by it -- tons and tons of the stuff. The toxins are not dangerous because they are chemically "fixed" in the ground. Now we come along and isolate those toxins in the process of isolating the valuable metal ore. We have the ability to re-process the toxins into a safe(r) state, but to do that would make the entire effort un-profitable. So instead of cleaning up the mess, we just leave the concentrated "toxic waste" lying in an open pit. The elements that were harmless, possibly beneficial, in diluted/fixed states are now free to wreck havoc with the ecosystem. It is this continuing behavior that is killing the world and us.
Hmmm, that would be tricky. I've read about some new utility programs that let you run multiple independent instances of an OS on the same machine - that *might* be a way to get a server/client combo to work. Otherwise I have strong doubts.
Back when I was still using a 486, I was having some trouble with a game controller. I reached in back of the running machine to make sure the plug was firmly seated in the game port and **POP**!! The screen went blank, the fans stopped turning and I got this terrible sinking feeling. But luck was with me that day - all I had to do was unplug the sound card and put it back in again, then all was well. (Everything was securely fastened and properly aligned to begin with - so I still don't know exactly what went wrong.) Needless to say that was the very LAST time I touched any wires on a running machine.
I may be wrong on this one, in truth, I hope that I am. But if ZPE is the EMR that you find in empty space then that energy is in an unusable state. The reasons are in the nature of energy movement needed to produce work. In order to convert energy into work, it must move from a higher concentration to a lower concentration (the so-called sink). The problem would seem to be that ZPE represents the "final" sink. We cannot extract the ZPE because there is no "lower" sink for it to flow into. (Refer to Carnot's description of a heat engine for more on this.) The vast pool of ZPE can be compared to another huge reservoir of energy that is stored in the world's oceans. If we could extract that energy, we would have our alternative source. Unfortunately it would take more outside energy to extract usable amounts of power from the ocean; we most likely will find ZPE to be unusable for the same reason.
[Regarding the ocean as a source of power, I remember reading about a proposed heat exchange based system that would move heat from the warm surface down into the colder depths - generating electricity along the way. The analysis concluded that while such an approach could technically produces usable power, the economies of building/maintaining the installation would far exceed the value of energy produced. There was also the unknown environmental impact of the heat introduced to the depths.]
A minor misunderstanding has occurred, possibly due to my choice of words.
My position is that all forms of energy can be traced back to the natural process of solar fusion. Whether that process occurs in our sun or some other star isn't important to understanding that process, or to how we have learned to use the byproducts of that process.
The fissionable material is a by-product of solar fusion. Uranium was once hydrogen in an ancient star. The formation of heavier elements was part of its death. Without hydrogen fusion to work against the force of gravity, the star slowly collapsed. That collapse increased the pressure and temperature, which in turn caused the production of heavier elements. The end result was a nova, which expelled that material from which formed the world we live on today.
I realize that the connection between fission and fusion is distant; but the origin of all elements beyond hydrogen resides in the last part of a stars life cycle. That connection is no more or less trivial than the connection between oil and photosynthesis.
RE: Fusion is unnecessary. This is also true, but unfortunately it will remain true only so long as we can harvest a cheap supply of energy from the reserves of the earth.
A strict discipline of conservation will help us now - to stretch out what we have - and later - to better utilize a new source of baseline power. It's just a matter of time before we are forced to adopt that new energy source.
IMHO, the only thing preventing us from realizing hot fusion now is our nature as a species. We currently have a source of energy for all our needs that has been with us for as long as any living person can remember - oil. We use if for producing everything that makes modern life possible. Until that source of power shows tangible signs of vanishing the incentive to conserve and ultimately replace it just isn't there. For the educated, we know very well that the oil, coal, and gas are running out. We can say that it will be gone within a generation. But until the broad masses of people, who don't bother to consider the realities of that wake up to the peril, we'll keep sailing along on our free energy ride. This is exacerbated by the greed and FUD that permeates business and government, who's only desire is for short-term profit. History is replete with examples of civilizations that have gone down this road to self-destruction; used up an easy to exploit natural resource, breeding like rabbits until the basis was exhausted and the system collapsed. Even current history can illustrate this lack of awareness.
As for "all that crap", I am inclined to agree with you there too. The existing alternatives to fossil fuel leave much to be desired. But burning anything isn't the answer. Nature has provided the best (and only) source of long term power - fusion. In order to survive and persist, we absolutely must master this natural process.
Please, consider for a moment what would happen today if we lost our remaining fossil fuels. We need them to produce food (those high-yield crops require chemically fertilized soil to be productive). The machinery for food production requires energy. All of our electrical, heating, transportation, manufacturing, and medical science require the petroleum energy subsidy to work. Denied this and many millions would die slow painful deaths of starvation and exposure, as every major city collapsed socially.
The bottom line is we need to make fusion work, because conservation isn't enough. When the fossil fuel is gone, no amount of frugality can make 0 amps do anything.
For all the conservation and all the wonderful attempts at "alternative" energy sources, the bottom line we are completely dependent on fossil fuels. There is no aspect of our civilization that is not somehow connected to cheap sources of stored energy. The US was electrified in the 20s' and, along with the rest of the world, we've been consuming that stored energy at startling rates. Next time you have the chance to view a major city at night from above, think about the thousands of similar cities around the world - each with millions of individuals - all consuming that stored energy, all the time. With that realized, I cannot accept the proposition that our baseline power needs are going to be satisfied by the wind, solar, and geo power sources that, while triumphs of invention and ingenuity, are too few and far in-between for the bulk of our needs. Remember that ALL forms of energy have roots in solar fusion. There are no exceptions to this! Like the earth is a resistor in a circuit where the sun is the battery and interstellar space is the ground. If we are going to continue to survive en-mass beyond the point when the stored energy boom ends, there is no better option that putting a piece of the sun in a bottle. (Keep your eyes on bio-gassification too)
It would be nice to have an embedded processor and a few gigs of memory added to the old bean. Just think of all the stuff you would never forget again - and all the things you could do without the need to carry around a bunch of devices. No visors, no laptops, no cell phones, no credit cards, no beepers, and no PDAs. Brings to mind the RPG CyberPunk.
Too bad the full potential is all pie in the sky for now. When (if?) it does finally arrive, I'll bet people would risk their lives to gain that kind of power. Myself included - after beta testing of course:)
Does Linux have a generic sound engine to compliment the GL support?
IMHO one of the few things M$ did cool was DirectX; I would very much like to see a similar gaming system for Linux. After all, who would desire a return to the days of DOS when games were built for a specific set of sound and video cards? Could it be that a generic sound/video translation layer is the key to massive game developer support for Linux?
If it's out there now (or in development), would someone please post a link?
Slashdot Mirror
Very true.
Has anyone found a anti-snoop HOWTO for building a new house?
While it's true that the only real protection from big brother is to be completely anonymous and not draw attention to one's self; I am more concerned with local busy-bodies (like the kind who get a kick out of listening in on wireless phone conversations.)
If anyone has a link to information on practical methods to shield a building, please post it.
THX.
I think that growing replacement parts from a person's own tissues would be a great thing.
I also think that cloning individuals would be no different that spawning a twin of yourself.
What I dread are the failures that will occur along the road to perfecting the cloning technique. Yes, some will be detected early enough to abort, but some will not. Remember the lab in Alien Resurrection? Therefore I do not believe that we should continue to develop cloning of humans, because the price of the *inevitable* mistakes will be paid by innocent people - who never had a choice!! Isn't it bad enough that debilitating genetic disorders arise "naturally"? The whole think reeks of eugenics and Nazi contempt for individual human suffering.
I don't know about Abit, but a company named Promise has them. Look here:
http://www.aberdeeninc.com/abcatg/MB6601.htm
I use this model at home with a 40 Gig RAID.
Also, Promise is reported to be introducing a newer version that supports ATA66 that will be released sometime in Aug of 99.
I for one fail to see the problem. How many "natural" impacts has the moon suffered since its formation? Does it really matter if an iron cored meteor fragment or a spacecraft causes the impact? That spacecraft was made from materials that can be found all over the solar system. Just because we've put it into a new and useful form doesn't make it any less of a natural object. This whole business of trash and littering is based in emotional reasoning. The real danger to our world isn't from the so-called litter, but from the concentration of substances which are toxic to life (substances which - by the way - already permeate the earth in a chemically fixed state). Every ounce of "industrial waste" and "trash" existed in some other state before we refined it. Even the nuclear wastes existed, but in a different atomic configuration.
Here's an example. A big corporation wants to dig an open copper mine about 100 miles from where I live. A byproduct of that effort would be a large holding basin of toxic material - a byproduct of the copper extraction method. Those toxins are already in the earth there, and the environment/ecosystem isn't the least bit affected by it -- tons and tons of the stuff. The toxins are not dangerous because they are chemically "fixed" in the ground. Now we come along and isolate those toxins in the process of isolating the valuable metal ore. We have the ability to re-process the toxins into a safe(r) state, but to do that would make the entire effort un-profitable. So instead of cleaning up the mess, we just leave the concentrated "toxic waste" lying in an open pit. The elements that were harmless, possibly beneficial, in diluted/fixed states are now free to wreck havoc with the ecosystem. It is this continuing behavior that is killing the world and us.
Got a link for thoes budget NICs?
The most in-expensive ones I've found are $850
Thx.
Hmmm, that would be tricky.
I've read about some new utility programs that let you run multiple independent instances of an OS on the same machine - that *might* be a way to get a server/client combo to work. Otherwise I have strong doubts.
err, isn't Quake3Arena multi-threaded?
http://kikumaru.w-w.ne.jp/pc/celeron/index_e.html
Guess I'll chip in my two cents.
Back when I was still using a 486, I was having some trouble with a game controller. I reached in back of the running machine to make sure the plug was firmly seated in the game port and **POP**!! The screen went blank, the fans stopped turning and I got this terrible sinking feeling. But luck was with me that day - all I had to do was unplug the sound card and put it back in again, then all was well. (Everything was securely fastened and properly aligned to begin with - so I still don't know exactly what went wrong.) Needless to say that was the very LAST time I touched any wires on a running machine.
I may be wrong on this one, in truth, I hope that I am. But if ZPE is the EMR that you find in empty space then that energy is in an unusable state. The reasons are in the nature of energy movement needed to produce work. In order to convert energy into work, it must move from a higher concentration to a lower concentration (the so-called sink). The problem would seem to be that ZPE represents the "final" sink. We cannot extract the ZPE because there is no "lower" sink for it to flow into. (Refer to Carnot's description of a heat engine for more on this.) The vast pool of ZPE can be compared to another huge reservoir of energy that is stored in the world's oceans. If we could extract that energy, we would have our alternative source. Unfortunately it would take more outside energy to extract usable amounts of power from the ocean; we most likely will find ZPE to be unusable for the same reason.
[Regarding the ocean as a source of power, I remember reading about a proposed heat exchange based system that would move heat from the warm surface down into the colder depths - generating electricity along the way. The analysis concluded that while such an approach could technically produces usable power, the economies of building/maintaining the installation would far exceed the value of energy produced. There was also the unknown environmental impact of the heat introduced to the depths.]
A minor misunderstanding has occurred, possibly due to my choice of words.
My position is that all forms of energy can be traced back to the natural process of solar fusion. Whether that process occurs in our sun or some other star isn't important to understanding that process, or to how we have learned to use the byproducts of that process.
The fissionable material is a by-product of solar fusion. Uranium was once hydrogen in an ancient star. The formation of heavier elements was part of its death. Without hydrogen fusion to work against the force of gravity, the star slowly collapsed. That collapse increased the pressure and temperature, which in turn caused the production of heavier elements. The end result was a nova, which expelled that material from which formed the world we live on today.
I realize that the connection between fission and fusion is distant; but the origin of all elements beyond hydrogen resides in the last part of a stars life cycle. That connection is no more or less trivial than the connection between oil and photosynthesis.
How reality works...
RE: ZPE - I agree with you 100%
RE: Fusion is unnecessary. This is also true, but unfortunately it will remain true only so long as we can harvest a cheap supply of energy from the reserves of the earth.
A strict discipline of conservation will help us now - to stretch out what we have - and later - to better utilize a new source of baseline power. It's just a matter of time before we are forced to adopt that new energy source.
IMHO, the only thing preventing us from realizing hot fusion now is our nature as a species. We currently have a source of energy for all our needs that has been with us for as long as any living person can remember - oil. We use if for producing everything that makes modern life possible. Until that source of power shows tangible signs of vanishing the incentive to conserve and ultimately replace it just isn't there. For the educated, we know very well that the oil, coal, and gas are running out. We can say that it will be gone within a generation. But until the broad masses of people, who don't bother to consider the realities of that wake up to the peril, we'll keep sailing along on our free energy ride. This is exacerbated by the greed and FUD that permeates business and government, who's only desire is for short-term profit. History is replete with examples of civilizations that have gone down this road to self-destruction; used up an easy to exploit natural resource, breeding like rabbits until the basis was exhausted and the system collapsed. Even current history can illustrate this lack of awareness.
As for "all that crap", I am inclined to agree with you there too. The existing alternatives to fossil fuel leave much to be desired. But burning anything isn't the answer. Nature has provided the best (and only) source of long term power - fusion. In order to survive and persist, we absolutely must master this natural process.
Please, consider for a moment what would happen today if we lost our remaining fossil fuels. We need them to produce food (those high-yield crops require chemically fertilized soil to be productive). The machinery for food production requires energy. All of our electrical, heating, transportation, manufacturing, and medical science require the petroleum energy subsidy to work. Denied this and many millions would die slow painful deaths of starvation and exposure, as every major city collapsed socially.
The bottom line is we need to make fusion work, because conservation isn't enough. When the fossil fuel is gone, no amount of frugality can make 0 amps do anything.
For all the conservation and all the wonderful attempts at "alternative" energy sources, the bottom line we are completely dependent on fossil fuels. There is no aspect of our civilization that is not somehow connected to cheap sources of stored energy. The US was electrified in the 20s' and, along with the rest of the world, we've been consuming that stored energy at startling rates. Next time you have the chance to view a major city at night from above, think about the thousands of similar cities around the world - each with millions of individuals - all consuming that stored energy, all the time. With that realized, I cannot accept the proposition that our baseline power needs are going to be satisfied by the wind, solar, and geo power sources that, while triumphs of invention and ingenuity, are too few and far in-between for the bulk of our needs. Remember that ALL forms of energy have roots in solar fusion. There are no exceptions to this! Like the earth is a resistor in a circuit where the sun is the battery and interstellar space is the ground. If we are going to continue to survive en-mass beyond the point when the stored energy boom ends, there is no better option that putting a piece of the sun in a bottle. (Keep your eyes on bio-gassification too)
It would be nice to have an embedded processor and a few gigs of memory added to the old bean. Just think of all the stuff you would never forget again - and all the things you could do without the need to carry around a bunch of devices. No visors, no laptops, no cell phones, no credit cards, no beepers, and no PDAs. Brings to mind the RPG CyberPunk.
:)
Too bad the full potential is all pie in the sky for now. When (if?) it does finally arrive, I'll bet people would risk their lives to gain that kind of power. Myself included - after beta testing of course
Does Linux have a generic sound engine to compliment the GL support?
IMHO one of the few things M$ did cool was DirectX; I would very much like to see a similar gaming system for Linux. After all, who would desire a return to the days of DOS when games were built for a specific set of sound and video cards? Could it be that a generic sound/video translation layer is the key to massive game developer support for Linux?
If it's out there now (or in development), would someone please post a link?