It's a Swept Surface Volumetric Display A friend and I actually built one in my shed. We removed the colour wheel from a DLP projector and replaced the bulb with a green laser. We projected from below onto a translucent spinning helix, which gave a better volumetric image than the flat surface used by these guys. We then animated a helical slice of a scene and interlaced the frames so that the red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow projected sequential slices of the helix. It worked quite well, although with a pre-compiled animation we had some vertical sync issues - the scene would move up or down through the space like an old TV. I've started writing a graphics engine that will take a normal 3D model and slice it up it in real time synced to the rotation of the helix via a hall effect sensor.
The Open Source Hardware Bank is another interesting approach to raising money for an open source project. Of course hardware is very different from software, but I thought that someone might find it interesting.
The problem with OSH is that the people who give a shit about it being open are just going to build it themselves and not bother buying anything from you.
In some cases this is true. However, there are other factors that come into it.
I own a couple of arduinos. Even though I have the skills to build one and I suppose it would be a bit of fun to do so, I chose to buy them. Why? For me, the biggest limitation is time. I have so many crazy ideas, and there is so little time! I bought each of my arduinos for a specific project. I prefer to spend my limited time on the projects themselves rather than building an arduino. I can buy the parts for an arduino for around $15, or I could buy one fully assembled for around $30. It'd probably take me a 3-4 hours to build and test an arduino and I would save $15. I don't know about you but my time is worth more than $3.75/hr.
Also, as these projects evolve they will almost certainly become more and more complex. Small scale manufacturing may not be able to match the efficiency of full scale manufacturing.
Agreed. I've counted votes. Writing on the ballot papers is not only useless, it increases the risk of your ballot paper being declared invalid.
If you feel strongly about this, or any other political issue then you might want to watch this TED talk by Omar Ahmad on Political Change with Pen and Paper.
He talks about the best way to get your voice heard by politicians, which turns out to be a hand written letter once a month.
Some researchers at Flinders Uni in South Australia did something similar in 2003. Their system used video to enhance the reliability of the speech recognition software. I'm not sure if they have taken it any further, but it's a great concept.
Here's one of their Papers [220KB pdf].
This thought has been deemed inappropriate. Citizens are reminded of their duty to engage only in authorized thought patterns. All traces of this thought will be removed from your memory.
I did a fresh install of 9.10 last night on an fairly old desktop with an SiS 315 integrated graphics card. I couldn't get the display to go above 800*600. I tried to edit the xorg.conf file, but it didn't exist. I tried creating it, restarting X and it still wouldn't go beyond 800*600. I'm pretty sure this has little to do with 9.10 and more to do with SiS drivers, but it was weird that I spent ages on this last night only to find a slashdot story about it this morning.
allows 'super snooper' players to plug into the nation's CCTV cameras
It's has nothing to do with the government's massive CCTV network. It is a private venture where store owners can rent cameras for £20 a week per camera.
It turns out that the old carrot and stick isn't the best motivator for jobs that involve any level of cognitive processing. Check out Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation at Ted.com.
I'm not sure how off topic this is but I have often thought about embedding a small video camera in my glasses and recording everything I see. Not only would it be a cool project, it could be a very useful memory aid. If my friends wore them too and chose to share visual memories with me then I could walk down an unfamiliar street and see what they saw when they were there.
Now, if only we could convince 'the criminals' to do the same...
My first thought was why throw it? Why not build a Rocket Propelled Robot, or RPR. I think what they'll end up with is a swarm of autonomous robots surrounding them in all directions feeding information in.
It is interesting that the animation shows a direct hit head on collision rather than a glancing blow. Most of matter from the planet and impactor seems to combine into a single mass. Would a glancing blow that shatters the impactor result in more debris?
Slashdot Mirror
It's a Swept Surface Volumetric Display A friend and I actually built one in my shed. We removed the colour wheel from a DLP projector and replaced the bulb with a green laser. We projected from below onto a translucent spinning helix, which gave a better volumetric image than the flat surface used by these guys. We then animated a helical slice of a scene and interlaced the frames so that the red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow projected sequential slices of the helix. It worked quite well, although with a pre-compiled animation we had some vertical sync issues - the scene would move up or down through the space like an old TV. I've started writing a graphics engine that will take a normal 3D model and slice it up it in real time synced to the rotation of the helix via a hall effect sensor.
That a dog will salivate when you ring a bell.
Pavlov...
The Open Source Hardware Bank is another interesting approach to raising money for an open source project. Of course hardware is very different from software, but I thought that someone might find it interesting.
Wow! That's great! I think I need one! Thanks for the link.
The problem with OSH is that the people who give a shit about it being open are just going to build it themselves and not bother buying anything from you.
In some cases this is true. However, there are other factors that come into it.
I own a couple of arduinos. Even though I have the skills to build one and I suppose it would be a bit of fun to do so, I chose to buy them. Why? For me, the biggest limitation is time. I have so many crazy ideas, and there is so little time! I bought each of my arduinos for a specific project. I prefer to spend my limited time on the projects themselves rather than building an arduino. I can buy the parts for an arduino for around $15, or I could buy one fully assembled for around $30. It'd probably take me a 3-4 hours to build and test an arduino and I would save $15. I don't know about you but my time is worth more than $3.75/hr.
Also, as these projects evolve they will almost certainly become more and more complex. Small scale manufacturing may not be able to match the efficiency of full scale manufacturing.
Agreed. I've counted votes. Writing on the ballot papers is not only useless, it increases the risk of your ballot paper being declared invalid.
If you feel strongly about this, or any other political issue then you might want to watch this TED talk by Omar Ahmad on Political Change with Pen and Paper.
He talks about the best way to get your voice heard by politicians, which turns out to be a hand written letter once a month.
Some researchers at Flinders Uni in South Australia did something similar in 2003. Their system used video to enhance the reliability of the speech recognition software. I'm not sure if they have taken it any further, but it's a great concept. Here's one of their Papers [220KB pdf].
Meanwhile, at the LHC a small group of physicists are shitting their pants asking each other? "What the fuck did we just do?"
Even harder if the handrail had 50,000 volts running through it...
I wonder if you could use the energy to power a desalination plant and then use the fresh water to power the.. hang on... I've gone cross eyed...
I find the more bugs I introduce at the start of the project, the better the users are at dealing with bugs later on...
My mind is the last sanctuary I have left
This thought has been deemed inappropriate. Citizens are reminded of their duty to engage only in authorized thought patterns. All traces of this thought will be removed from your memory.
Here is an interesting talk at TED.com on safe power outlets TED.com
I did a fresh install of 9.10 last night on an fairly old desktop with an SiS 315 integrated graphics card. I couldn't get the display to go above 800*600. I tried to edit the xorg.conf file, but it didn't exist. I tried creating it, restarting X and it still wouldn't go beyond 800*600. I'm pretty sure this has little to do with 9.10 and more to do with SiS drivers, but it was weird that I spent ages on this last night only to find a slashdot story about it this morning.
allows 'super snooper' players to plug into the nation's CCTV cameras
It's has nothing to do with the government's massive CCTV network. It is a private venture where store owners can rent cameras for £20 a week per camera.
You can get some pretty cool projects going quickly and easily with an Arduino. Combine that with Processing and you can do almost anything...
It turns out that the old carrot and stick isn't the best motivator for jobs that involve any level of cognitive processing. Check out Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation at Ted.com.
I'm not sure how off topic this is but I have often thought about embedding a small video camera in my glasses and recording everything I see. Not only would it be a cool project, it could be a very useful memory aid. If my friends wore them too and chose to share visual memories with me then I could walk down an unfamiliar street and see what they saw when they were there.
Now, if only we could convince 'the criminals' to do the same...
You don't need a surface if you project directly on your retina. Stereoscopic 3D augmented reality.
Haven't the been using them for years? See iRobot
My first thought was why throw it? Why not build a Rocket Propelled Robot, or RPR. I think what they'll end up with is a swarm of autonomous robots surrounding them in all directions feeding information in.
If you are interested in this sort of stuff, you might want to check out Gordon Brown's TED Talk on using technology to drive social change.
Not even crushing the hard drive with the gravity of a black hole guarantees that the information is impossible to retrieve!
It is interesting that the animation shows a direct hit head on collision rather than a glancing blow. Most of matter from the planet and impactor seems to combine into a single mass. Would a glancing blow that shatters the impactor result in more debris?
"Prehistoric Gene"
Which of our genes don't predate history?