Haven't you seen the old movie "Airplane!" from around 1980? Women passengers on their way to the airport gates walk past a security and a camera. From this angle you can see the male guard watching the monitor -- which shows the woman with no clothes on!
Or Total Recall from 1990 (protraying the world nearly a century in the future), anyone entering the subway rail system freely walks past a large X-ray scanner screen, with security observing skeletons walking through. Attempting to bring a gun results in an immediate alarm.
Of course, the guy from "A Fish Called Wanda" easily makes it through airport security with a gun..
or "permanent resident"?:->:->
Children of forgeiners born in Canada receive dual citizenship and are able to sponsor you, too. You can't buy that unless you happen to be Conrad Black...
Industry has used oil-only absorbant pads for years. At the gas station where I worked, we had a whole carton for cleaning up minor spills and leaks. It absorbed only petroleum products, and seperated gas from water. Also useful for cleaning oil spills outside in wet conditions, where you don't want the absorbancy wasted with water that doesn't need to be cleaned up.
Actually it's not oxygen they're wasting, its the helium (as coolant for the superconducting MRI magnets). Recall the story on/. weeks ago as the domestic supply is drying up.
I've seen the news stories on neuro-marketing before. My purely "gut" feeling is that try to collerate imagery with brain activity, and trying to find the magic solution to push the "buy it now, buy it now button in your mind is all a bunch of baloney and it proves that the "neuromarketers" have successfully marketed themselves to major advertisers.
The neuromarketers dazzle the advertisers with high tech research tools and high-concept pseudoscience and charge a lot of money for the privlidge. Quite a scam.
What upsets me is that the waiting lists for MRI scans for legitiment medical uses can be weeks or even months long (in Canada at least), while these expensive machines, and the scarce qualified persons that operate them, are tied up for completely "frivilous", and likely totally useless purposes.
Those old, cheap little portable TV sets - the ones with a CRT and a slide-rule analog tuning dial (like a radio) were great for monitoring people's cell phone conversations. They usually analon-tuned all the way up to the old UHF channel 83 - the frequencies for the high end of the UHF - TV were long ago reallocated to cell phones.
More efficent and easier to mix monensin into cattle feed, as has been done since the early '60s. An antibiotic sold under the tradename "rumensin", it is available as a component of supplemental vitamin/mineral feed mix; available by the bag or by the truckload at your local farm supply outlet. In a cow's stomach, it blocks the digestive microbes from breaking down corn sugar molecules into molecules of acetic acid, cardon dioxide and methane, instead keeping it all as one bigger acid molecule so the body can use all the carbon to bulk up. Otherwise, the gaseous CO2 and CH4 released would just be farted away and wasted.
Young cattle can gain more weight with less forage, less greenhouse gases emitted, and as a bonus the antibiotic protects the animal against a few diseases.
Need Ammonium Nitrate? Just go to a fertilizer dealer in your local farming community. One is next door to my farm. You can buy it by the bag (about $13 for 25kg) or in bulk conveyered into your truck or trailer (about $400 per tonne). It's dumped into their warehouse by the tractor-trailer load. No-one would miss it if some spillage on the ground were swept up and taken. The stuff is pretty harmless by itself, it would need to be mixed with a flammable liquid as a reactant. Funny that the dealer's diesel storage tank is right beside the warehouse. Last year a major story here in Canada was the news report of the arrest of potential Middleeastern terrorists and a large quantity of Ammonium Nitrate in their possesion. Thought it was funny because the same day I was spreading AN on fields as fertilizer with a diesel-fueled tractor, a combination that in theory had the materials to blow up a good sized building, yet no-one questioned me as to the purchase.
Disposable syringes and needles are not sold in pharmacies here unless one has a Diabetic ID or other doctor's prescriptions. Yet anyone can purchase these at any farm supply store although labelled "for veterinary use only". It is necessary to carry these in my vehicle when checking and processing livestock, yet I hope if I am ever pulled over for any reason that the cops don't go bonkers over it, like they see the U.S. counterparts in "COPS" (on Fox) when they stop methheads and crackheads.
The first thing that comes to my mind when talking about e-paper, and its advertising uses, is the scene from "Minority Report". Tom Cruise is supremely annoyed with a cereal box made of e-paper playing a silly commercial, and pitches it across the room.
All of these altruistic reasons for not showing driver's license to the cops are missing the main point.
In Canada, law enforcement has the right to ask for I.D. I carry another I.D. seperate from my driver's license -- the provinical health insurance card. In this situation, I would have presented it, NOT my D.L., or any other incident that does not involve me operating a motor vehicle.
Why? Auto Insurance Rates. I don't want the police entering my D.L. # in some sort of database that the insurance companies have access too, resulting in a totally unjustified insurance rate increase or even a cancellation, for showing something not legally required.
Several kinds of vehicles don't need a driver's license. Bicycles, tractors, construction equipment, etc. You have to obey the traffic laws and provide ID when requested, but refuse to show the DL for the aforementioned reason. (Caution: Different laws may apply for DWI suspects; you can lose your DL even if you rode drunk in the street on your bicycle.)
I drive farm tractors on public roads frequently and if ever pulled over driving one would refuse to show DL, just my other "government" ID.
This has also happened to railroad personnell involved in train / car collisions. In such situtaions, has long as RR procedures are met ( whistle blowing, flasing warning lights operating), a car that gets crashed into by a train is historically automatically at fault for the collision, since the railroads have a the right of way and it is the car driver's job to stay out the way of the train (same as running into stationary objects). Police require ID of the persons involved at the scene. Train engineer gives the cops his [car] driver's license for that purpose. Then the engineer finds his own personal auto insurance rates have gone up... because insurance company found out about the incident, for driving a machine that he didn't need a state-issued license for!!
The mail client I've always used is Netscape Mail ver. 3.01 . Far easier to use then any recent version of MS Outlook, I've also installed it this year on my mother's laptop as a no-frills mail client. Try right - clicking a message on Outlook and you get a ridiculous long list of arcane options when all you really want is Delete for spam. Just adding an E-mail address to the address "contact" book is a nightmare of multiple confusing options. The old Netscape program is resistant to most malacious scripts attached to E-mail simply because it doesn't recognize it as code.
Also great is any of the original games played on a Commodore 64 Emulator. Even at pokey dial-up speeds were I live, even the most complex C64 game downloads in only a few seconds flat!
The post mentions that cattle are shipped "on crowed trains". As both a beef cattle farmer and a railfan, I can tell them that live cattle shipments by rail in the U.S. ended about 20 years ago.
At least 20 years ago I read in a gaming magazine about an arcade video game developer who recalled inventing a game that had a very advanced feature: the arcade game had a camera to make a digital snapshot of your face when you inserted the coins. Your face would be incorporated into your onscreen playing character in the game. Also if you were a highscorer, then your picture would appear onscreen between plays with the other highscorers. A prototype of the game were placed in an arcade to guage gamer interest.
All was fine until the top scoring player of the game exposed his genetalia to the camera. The arcade operator complained to the manufacturer that the machine, when not being played, flashed a big picture of a P3N15 along with the top ten scorers.
It just shows you that there always would be some smart ass who will try to screw up the system by throwing in something completely unexpected.
I've always known that the cardholder's name is encoded in the magnetic stripe -- the Sunoco gas station's POS system will print out your name on the receipt if you use your credit card.
I've worked in Esso gas stations in Canada, and years ago they upgraded from the Sharp POS units (very good but limited functions) to the Verifones that had a very unintuitive interface. But it had a special "card track dump" function that would reveal on the display the complete contents of the magnetic stripe. Now when you think of it is fairly unsettling to have a gas pump attendant to have access to this data from your card if he swipes it when you're not looking. Plus he has a copy of your signature on paper, making it all to easy for the attendant to sell this info to criminal card sharks.
Not being a diabetic I am not familiar with the technology, but I guess that there is no "aftermarket" or "generic" test strips available. All of these medical devices must have to be "FDA approved", and so the agency just does not approve for sale any test strips not made by the OEM for the meter, and the manufacturers for the meters lobby the FDA to keep it that way.
I've seen ads in magazines for glucose test meters that state that the manufacturer will give you a rebate equal to the purchase price if you buy three months worth of test strips.
Which makes me suspect that the makers of the latest electronic test meters sell them at loss, even free in this case, because they count on a steady market for grossly overpriced consumables. Doesn't this sound familiar? Inkjet printer manufacturer discourage you from using refilled/aftermarket cartridges by claiming it's unhealthy for the printer. If they do damage it, the printers are so cheap you just buy a new one. But if there is a chance that an "unauthorized" glucose test strip might give an unaccurate result.... well there is no second chance when your life is at stake.
... deep, deep, inside, is a copy of the infamous ( mythical ? ) issue of the Bell Technical Journal that described the operator-assited long distance dialing mechanism, and how easily it could be defeated. It gave rise to the "phone phreaks" and "blue box" devices in the 1960's, and rest is hacker history.
Several years ago I heard of demonstation at CeBIT of a "laser projection TV".
The concept is extraordinary simple. CRT (and projection CRTs) fire an electron beam at phosphor coated glass in a vacuum, creating a lit spot on the outside. The beam is deflected by magnetic coils outside the tube, creating a sizable image on the glass.
I a "laser TV", three modulated laser beams (R,G,B) are combined together and fired directly at the viewing screen. Deflection can be done with a pair of spinning multi-faceted mirrors. Simple as that. No shadow mask, phosphors, or thick glass to get in the way of full brightness.
The advantage would be a projection TV of any size, with a screen that is completely flat (or any other shape needed - say projecting ads onto spherical screens) that is always in focus, and without distortion from any viewing angle.
Do such units exist? Specialist uses at mega-mega-buck prices? Why can't I purchase these at Best Buy for $399 and point it the living room wall or fridge door or the whole side of the house?
Haven't you read Larry Niven's "Ringworld" and related works? The http://www.larryniven.org/images/rc/ss65.jpgautodo c is a device that would be conceivabley fit in a large ambulance, and as long as you can crawl inside, or someone place you there, it can automatically diagnois and treat any injury or sickness. Exotic alien species? No problem. Multiple organ transplants and limb amputations? It's got plenty of spare parts available!
The literature handed out at the public consultations meetings suggest that the speed limit for cars be set at 85 MPH.
Since it will be a toll highway, your entry and exit points are tracked. I think that for maximum revenue, the toll should be based on both distance and rate of travel. miles x miles/hour, or "square miles" per hour. For the same distance, a person travelling twice as fast pays twice as much. The ultimate in free-market, wide-upon-throttle economics.
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Haven't you seen the old movie "Airplane!" from around 1980? Women passengers on their way to the airport gates walk past a security and a camera. From this angle you can see the male guard watching the monitor -- which shows the woman with no clothes on! Or Total Recall from 1990 (protraying the world nearly a century in the future), anyone entering the subway rail system freely walks past a large X-ray scanner screen, with security observing skeletons walking through. Attempting to bring a gun results in an immediate alarm. Of course, the guy from "A Fish Called Wanda" easily makes it through airport security with a gun..
or "permanent resident"? :-> :->
Children of forgeiners born in Canada receive dual citizenship and are able to sponsor you, too. You can't buy that unless you happen to be Conrad Black...
http://www.spillsupply.com/Pads.html
Actually it's not oxygen they're wasting, its the helium (as coolant for the superconducting MRI magnets). Recall the story on /. weeks ago as the domestic supply is drying up.
The neuromarketers dazzle the advertisers with high tech research tools and high-concept pseudoscience and charge a lot of money for the privlidge. Quite a scam.
What upsets me is that the waiting lists for MRI scans for legitiment medical uses can be weeks or even months long (in Canada at least), while these expensive machines, and the scarce qualified persons that operate them, are tied up for completely "frivilous", and likely totally useless purposes.
Remember seeing them before as novelties in the aquariums of a department store pet department... and was likely 25 years ago.
Those old, cheap little portable TV sets - the ones with a CRT and a slide-rule analog tuning dial (like a radio) were great for monitoring people's cell phone conversations. They usually analon-tuned all the way up to the old UHF channel 83 - the frequencies for the high end of the UHF - TV were long ago reallocated to cell phones.
More efficent and easier to mix monensin into cattle feed, as has been done since the early '60s. An antibiotic sold under the tradename "rumensin", it is available as a component of supplemental vitamin/mineral feed mix; available by the bag or by the truckload at your local farm supply outlet. In a cow's stomach, it blocks the digestive microbes from breaking down corn sugar molecules into molecules of acetic acid, cardon dioxide and methane, instead keeping it all as one bigger acid molecule so the body can use all the carbon to bulk up. Otherwise, the gaseous CO2 and CH4 released would just be farted away and wasted. Young cattle can gain more weight with less forage, less greenhouse gases emitted, and as a bonus the antibiotic protects the animal against a few diseases.
(Sigh) I suppose that Apple may claim the right to any domain that begins with a lowercase "i".
Disposable syringes and needles are not sold in pharmacies here unless one has a Diabetic ID or other doctor's prescriptions. Yet anyone can purchase these at any farm supply store although labelled "for veterinary use only". It is necessary to carry these in my vehicle when checking and processing livestock, yet I hope if I am ever pulled over for any reason that the cops don't go bonkers over it, like they see the U.S. counterparts in "COPS" (on Fox) when they stop methheads and crackheads.
Easily the best highlight of the movie!!
We haven't had a Province of Newfoundland for at least a few years. The official, legal name is now "Newfoundland & Labrador".
In Canada, law enforcement has the right to ask for I.D. I carry another I.D. seperate from my driver's license -- the provinical health insurance card. In this situation, I would have presented it, NOT my D.L., or any other incident that does not involve me operating a motor vehicle.
Why? Auto Insurance Rates. I don't want the police entering my D.L. # in some sort of database that the insurance companies have access too, resulting in a totally unjustified insurance rate increase or even a cancellation, for showing something not legally required.
Several kinds of vehicles don't need a driver's license. Bicycles, tractors, construction equipment, etc. You have to obey the traffic laws and provide ID when requested, but refuse to show the DL for the aforementioned reason. (Caution: Different laws may apply for DWI suspects; you can lose your DL even if you rode drunk in the street on your bicycle.)
I drive farm tractors on public roads frequently and if ever pulled over driving one would refuse to show DL, just my other "government" ID. This has also happened to railroad personnell involved in train / car collisions. In such situtaions, has long as RR procedures are met ( whistle blowing, flasing warning lights operating), a car that gets crashed into by a train is historically automatically at fault for the collision, since the railroads have a the right of way and it is the car driver's job to stay out the way of the train (same as running into stationary objects). Police require ID of the persons involved at the scene. Train engineer gives the cops his [car] driver's license for that purpose. Then the engineer finds his own personal auto insurance rates have gone up... because insurance company found out about the incident, for driving a machine that he didn't need a state-issued license for!!
Also great is any of the original games played on a Commodore 64 Emulator. Even at pokey dial-up speeds were I live, even the most complex C64 game downloads in only a few seconds flat!
The post mentions that cattle are shipped "on crowed trains". As both a beef cattle farmer and a railfan, I can tell them that live cattle shipments by rail in the U.S. ended about 20 years ago.
All was fine until the top scoring player of the game exposed his genetalia to the camera. The arcade operator complained to the manufacturer that the machine, when not being played, flashed a big picture of a P3N15 along with the top ten scorers.
It just shows you that there always would be some smart ass who will try to screw up the system by throwing in something completely unexpected.
I've worked in Esso gas stations in Canada, and years ago they upgraded from the Sharp POS units (very good but limited functions) to the Verifones that had a very unintuitive interface. But it had a special "card track dump" function that would reveal on the display the complete contents of the magnetic stripe. Now when you think of it is fairly unsettling to have a gas pump attendant to have access to this data from your card if he swipes it when you're not looking. Plus he has a copy of your signature on paper, making it all to easy for the attendant to sell this info to criminal card sharks.
Not being a diabetic I am not familiar with the technology, but I guess that there is no "aftermarket" or "generic" test strips available. All of these medical devices must have to be "FDA approved", and so the agency just does not approve for sale any test strips not made by the OEM for the meter, and the manufacturers for the meters lobby the FDA to keep it that way.
I've seen ads in magazines for glucose test meters that state that the manufacturer will give you a rebate equal to the purchase price if you buy three months worth of test strips.
Which makes me suspect that the makers of the latest electronic test meters sell them at loss, even free in this case, because they count on a steady market for grossly overpriced consumables. Doesn't this sound familiar? Inkjet printer manufacturer discourage you from using refilled/aftermarket cartridges by claiming it's unhealthy for the printer. If they do damage it, the printers are so cheap you just buy a new one. But if there is a chance that an "unauthorized" glucose test strip might give an unaccurate result.... well there is no second chance when your life is at stake.
... deep, deep, inside, is a copy of the infamous ( mythical ? ) issue of the Bell Technical Journal that described the operator-assited long distance dialing mechanism, and how easily it could be defeated. It gave rise to the "phone phreaks" and "blue box" devices in the 1960's, and rest is hacker history.
Several years ago I heard of demonstation at CeBIT of a "laser projection TV". The concept is extraordinary simple. CRT (and projection CRTs) fire an electron beam at phosphor coated glass in a vacuum, creating a lit spot on the outside. The beam is deflected by magnetic coils outside the tube, creating a sizable image on the glass. I a "laser TV", three modulated laser beams (R,G,B) are combined together and fired directly at the viewing screen. Deflection can be done with a pair of spinning multi-faceted mirrors. Simple as that. No shadow mask, phosphors, or thick glass to get in the way of full brightness. The advantage would be a projection TV of any size, with a screen that is completely flat (or any other shape needed - say projecting ads onto spherical screens) that is always in focus, and without distortion from any viewing angle. Do such units exist? Specialist uses at mega-mega-buck prices? Why can't I purchase these at Best Buy for $399 and point it the living room wall or fridge door or the whole side of the house?
Still, nothing beats CRTs when it comes to consistent brightness from a variety of viewing angles.
Haven't you read Larry Niven's "Ringworld" and related works? The http://www.larryniven.org/images/rc/ss65.jpgautodo c is a device that would be conceivabley fit in a large ambulance, and as long as you can crawl inside, or someone place you there, it can automatically diagnois and treat any injury or sickness. Exotic alien species? No problem. Multiple organ transplants and limb amputations? It's got plenty of spare parts available!
The literature handed out at the public consultations meetings suggest that the speed limit for cars be set at 85 MPH. Since it will be a toll highway, your entry and exit points are tracked. I think that for maximum revenue, the toll should be based on both distance and rate of travel. miles x miles/hour, or "square miles" per hour. For the same distance, a person travelling twice as fast pays twice as much. The ultimate in free-market, wide-upon-throttle economics.
JetBlue advertises that they offer 36 channels of DirecTV. Screen at every seat. For free. Right now. No need to bring your own equipment.