"Huge American sums spent on space strengthen US economy by creating Tang instant orange drink and heat-trapping pizza delivery bags. US will commodify your discontent, sell it back to you on DVD."
Dear Customer,
Upon ordering your DVD make sure to order using the correct Region Designation. Should you plan to move from the caves of Afganistan to some other hidyhole you will need to re-order your DVD. Also, you may not sell, lease, transfer, display, view, listen to, or otherwise make use of any products purchased.
Thank you,
US Gov. ^H^H^H^H^H MPAA/RIAA Consortium
I don't mean to cast any bad light on the individual who committed suicide - that is an incredibly tragic thing for anyone to do.
However, I do have a problem with this blaming of Everquest! It's not a games fault someone does this... if a game can push someone over the edge, then that person was already severely unbalanced and the trigger could have been anything. In this case it appears to have been the game...
I have more issues with the parent who waited until after he died to get involved:
He sacrificed everything so he could play for hours, ignoring his family, quitting his job and losing himself in a 3-D virtual world where more than 400,000 people worldwide adventure in a never-ending fantasy.
Should this kind of behavior not be setting off all sorts of alarm bells here? Why did it take his suicide to provoke a reaction?
"Shawn was playing 12 hours a day, and he wasn't supposed to because he was epileptic, and the game would cause seizures," she said. "Probably the last eight times he had seizures were because of stints on the computer."
Woolley knows her son had problems beyond EverQuest, and she tried to get him help by contacting a mental health program and trying to get him to live in a group home. A psychologist diagnosed him with depression and schizoid personality disorder, symptoms of which include a lack of desire for social relationships, little or no sex drive and a limited range of emotions in social settings.
I hate to say it, but this sounds like it's largely the parents fault. It doesn't sound like they did enough to prevent him playing and get him better integrated.* Why was that computer even available? If he's having seizures from playing that machine should not even be available to play on!
* - I say sounds like it. I could be wrong... a parent cannot always prevent such actions of their children. The best they can do is try.
I must say that being subjected to a day of mostly poor and incredibly obvious/. jokes has been significantly worse than listening to a days worth of Vogon poetry!
Thank the diety-of-your-choice that it is coming to and end!
Of course, they don't mention the weapons potential.
Argh. It seems there is one of those unwritten Slashdot rules that dictates any story about lasers must be accompanied by posts about laser weapons... usually in the Death Ray variety. For the most part lasers make poor offensive weapons, at least in the Burning a Hole Through X variety.
(Thank you Alien54 for not suggesting such a thing)
I've posted this before but here it is again:
***************
It seems inevitable that whenever there is a story regarding lasers we get to see all sorts of silly posts about blasting people with laser.
Even antimissle lasers have a long way to go. Between power requirements, beam handling, divergence, and atmospheric interference, lasers do not make great destructive weapons.
However, they would be damned good for some nasty tricks like blinding the enemy army (or, unfortunately, civilians).
Take this scenario: a bomber/cargo style aircraft has been outfitted with a large infrared laser (similar things have been done). Fly said aircraft over the people you wish to 'zap'. Release some fireworks or other attention getting devices and when the crowd looks up turn on and start scanning the laser.
Since the laser is infrared nobody would know they are being exposed to blinding levels of light, nor would the blink/aversion reaction take place. By the time you noticed anything the
permanent damage has been done. Scary huh?
Another scenario under serious consideration by police (at least here in Canada, I've participated in meetings on the subject) is the use of lasers against commercial aircraft. The idea isn't to
shoot down the aircraft, but to scan at temporarily blind the pilot during final night approaches. The effect is like someone flashing a camera flash in your face when your in a dark room.
As the few moments prior to landing are the most critical, distracting and flash blinding the pilot could easily lead to the plane crashing.
Worse, new solid state lasers are available in the 3watt (plenty of power to cause permanent blindness) range and can be powered off a car with an inverter. Simply park at the end of a
convenient runway at night, plug 'er in and away you go. Ok, so it's not quite that easy, but the concept is...
Doesn't that all just scare you a bit more than some silly death ray?
Note: after saying all that I want to point out that I do not support the insane regulations placed against the use of lasers in the United States by the CDRH. It's totally ridiculous and
overzealous.
An ordinary laser emits only a single color because it's built with a light-emitting substance that naturally generates one wavelength of light when energized.
Technically speaking this isn't quite true - it depends on what your lasing medium consists of. While each colour line emitted will be monochromatic, a single laser is capable of producing multiple lines.
In the case of a Krypton or Helium Neon ion gas laser you will get a single line out (usually, but not necessarily, red for either of these).
However, if I look at an Argon laser with apropriate optics you get primarily Blue and Green (514nm "Green" and 488nm "Blue") lines (with combinations in between). If I put a prism to the output of my little American Laser 60x I can see 7 individual lines - 5 are of such lower power as to be virtually useless, but the primary Green and Blue are strong.
Then if you look at a Copper Vapor laser which works by evaporating copper you get two lines: an emerald green and *gold* (this type of laser was made famous during the Pink Floyd Division Bell tour).
Newer solid state are very much single line. If you ever see a very harsh green beam you are probably looking at a Nd:YAG laser. The new solid state stuff is really looking promising... much more reliable with a much longer lifespan. Now, if they could just get the Blue solid states more powerful reliable we would be laughing. A low to mid powered white-light lasershow that could fit in a briefcase! On the down side though, typically much lower power output than their ion cousins (and the YAG green is, in my opinion, really nasty).
Could almost make me miss lugging 909's around...:)
In related news the CERN research facility was blown off the map yesterday in what experts are calling a catastrophic power failure.
Around 9:30 last night a burrowing squirrel shorted out electrical lines causing an initial power surge followed by a blackout.
Experts believe that researchers had the magnetic containment field generators connected to a household UPS, which proved unable to keep the field in place.
The result of the containment failure has been described as being very similar to that of a "collapsing hrung." Unfortunately nobody has been able to identify what a hrung is, nor why one should choose to collapse on the CERN facility.
Just don't buy products (in this case an X-Box) that have this sort of "feature".
I know you may want one, but the only way to get companies to stop doing this kind of thing is to vote with your wallet. Otherwise, where is their insentive?
It's highly unlikely that a 'Generation Ship' - one which sees the passangers and crew grow through multiple generations over the course of the voyage - is even possible.
Here's (one) major problem: skills. Each successive generation after the first will be born and raised shipboard. All the teaching they receive on planets and planet life will be academic at best.
Does an education absent of any form of direct experience make for good pioneers? Especially given that there is no possibility of help from back home?
Gates's Law: "The speed of software halves every 18 months." This oft-cited law is an ironic comment on the tendency of software bloat to outpace the every-18-month doubling in hardware caopacity per dollar predicted by Moore's Law. The reference is to Bill Gates; Microsoft is widely considered among the worst if not the worst of the perpetrators of bloat.
Ever notice how it seems that the newer and faster your computer gets, the longer the sucker takes to boot?
Hence, I believe that (Myriad's law?):
Boot Time is Inversely Proportionate to Computing Power - The more power you've got, the longer it's going to take.
Ie, my old 486DX50 took longer to bring up DOS than my 386. (The 386 behind my 286, 8086. Hell, the C64 kicked all their asses!) Primarily because of added TSRs, memory managers etc.
Then my P100 took longer to fire up... Good 'ol Windows.
Now the Athlon takes ages... init bloody RAID arrays, UTA100 controllers, SCSI devices, Windows...let windows initialize all the above plus more. Wait wait wait. Go for coffee. Wait some more.
Maybe a control-augumentation module is in order for the PocketPC? Becuase as far as I can tell, playing Quake requires about the whole keyboard (how does one talk?).
Such moduals exist in a limited sense, at least for the Handspring Visor. Check out the Gameface for the Visor.
For the URL impaired, it is basically a joystick & button pad that clips over the Visor for gaming.
Anyone know if they have a similar version for the PocketPC?
Now not only do people know where I am, but how fast I am going. Cross-reference with a map, and they know what road I'm on.
I don't need to know your velocity to know what road you're on! Think about it... you're on Highway X and you fire off a message. Well, guess what, you can only be traveling North/South or East/West. I don't know to many highways that give you more options than that. Cross reference your location with a map an I know what road you're on. Fire more than one message while traveling the same highway and I know exactly which direction you are headed.
Besides, once I know your location it's all a rather accedemic. I could simply follow you in a helicopter if I want to. To extreme? A couple of friends in cars with FRS radios should do nicely. Not to mention you can be tracked quite effectively with just your cellphone being turned on - never mind this GPS stuff. It's called triangulation.
Watch Your Eyes
on
Lunar Lasers
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It seems inevitable that whenever there is a story regarding lasers we get to see all sorts of silly posts about blasting people with laser.
Even antimissle lasers have a long way to go. Between power requirements, beam handling, divergence, and atmospheric interference, lasers do not make great destructive weapons.
However, they would be damned good for some nasty tricks like blinding the enemy army (or, unfortunately, civilians).
Take this scenario: a bomber/cargo style aircraft has been outfitted with a large infrared laser (similar things have been done). Fly said aircraft over the people you wish to 'zap'. Release some fireworks or other attention getting devices and when the crowd looks up turn on and start scanning the laser.
Since the laser is infrared nobody would know they are being exposed to blinding levels of light, nor would the blink/aversion reaction take place. By the time you noticed anything the permanent damage has been done. Scary huh?
Another scenario under serious consideration by police (at least here in Canada, I've participated in meetings on the subject) is the use of lasers against commercial aircraft. The idea isn't to shoot down the aircraft, but to scan at temporarily blind the pilot during final night approaches. The effect is like someone flashing a camera flash in your face when your in a dark room.
As the few moments prior to landing are the most critical, distracting and flash blinding the pilot could easily lead to the plane crashing.
Worse, new solid state lasers are available in the 3watt (plenty of power to cause permanent blindness) range and can be powered off a car with an inverter. Simply park at the end of a convenient runway at night, plug 'er in and away you go. Ok, so it's not quite that easy, but the concept is...
Doesn't that all just scare you a bit more than some silly death ray?
Note: after saying all that I want to point out that I do not support the insane regulations placed against the use of lasers in the United States by the CDRH. It's totally ridiculous and overzealous.
This is interesting... according to the Cape Cod link this U.S. site was the location of the first successful transatlantic radio communication.
Then it goes on to say: "the Marconi operation at this location was initiated by the young inventor in 1901. However, in December of that year, due to a number of setbacks, he had to use temporary facilities on St. John's, Newfoundland to prove his theory--wireless could cross the Atlantic!"
Doesn't that present a complete turn around from their previous statement?
In any event, the reenactment link has it correct with: "December 12, 2001 will mark the 100th anniversary of
the first Trans-Atlantic radio transmission. That signal was transmitted across the Atlantic from Poldhu, Cornwall England to St John's, Newfoundland."
The fundamental problem here in finding this stuff is that it's all pretty much black. And the basic colour of space, you see, is also black. So how are we supposed to see it?
Re:Nice ap, but no real world potential yet
on
Quantum Holography
·
· Score: 2
As I see it, if you CAN'T see the back side of an object, then you can't see it! You can assume what it looks like and then create an image out of that assumption, but unless you are looking directly at it, you'll never know.
Ah, but what if I knew what it looked like before setting the whole thing up? If my hologram looked like the original, as I saw it in the first place, then is this not accurate?
I suppose you could argue collapsing wave functions and quantum probability, but I'd think that was pushing it, no?
For the moment, quantum holography exists only on paper. But the researchers assert that there are no technological obstacles to the proposal, and they hope to begin building an experimental system soon.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but according to the article this process relies on quantum entanglement. As far as I know this has never been achieved on a large scale - only in single pairs.
As I see it here this would require two lasers to be emitting entangled beams. I've never heard of a way this can be done. Without, as far as I can see, this process would not work. Seems to be a rather large sticking point... though I don't know how many photon pairs they actually need out of those beams. Anyone know more about this?
In related news a local mans foolish attempt to squeeze a few extra cycles out of his processor has ended in tragedy with the death of himself, 3 friends and 6 neighbors.
Around 3am last night a blast shook the neighborhood blowing out windows and killing 10 people including 4 young men who were in the immediate blast zone when it occurred. These men apparently were also responsible for the explosion itself.
The four men described as "Geeks" were apparently attempting to "Overclock" their system. Witnesses say one man was last seen carrying a large jug of Alcohol he claimed would "ch!ll th!5 f()k3r t0 d@ b0n3!".
A lot of people seem to think Wolfenstein 3D was the game that started it all... well, maybe in terms of FPS, but not the start of the Wolfenstein series.
The first was Castle Wolfenstein, a great old game originally for the Apple computer (as in II, II+, IIc kind of thing, not Mac).
For those looking to re-live the past, a copy is available here.
Slashdot Mirror
Dear Customer,
Upon ordering your DVD make sure to order using the correct Region Designation. Should you plan to move from the caves of Afganistan to some other hidyhole you will need to re-order your DVD. Also, you may not sell, lease, transfer, display, view, listen to, or otherwise make use of any products purchased.
Thank you,
US Gov. ^H^H^H^H^H MPAA/RIAA Consortium
However, I do have a problem with this blaming of Everquest! It's not a games fault someone does this... if a game can push someone over the edge, then that person was already severely unbalanced and the trigger could have been anything. In this case it appears to have been the game...
I have more issues with the parent who waited until after he died to get involved:
He sacrificed everything so he could play for hours, ignoring his family, quitting his job and losing himself in a 3-D virtual world where more than 400,000 people worldwide adventure in a never-ending fantasy.
Should this kind of behavior not be setting off all sorts of alarm bells here? Why did it take his suicide to provoke a reaction?
"Shawn was playing 12 hours a day, and he wasn't supposed to because he was epileptic, and the game would cause seizures," she said. "Probably the last eight times he had seizures were because of stints on the computer."
Woolley knows her son had problems beyond EverQuest, and she tried to get him help by contacting a mental health program and trying to get him to live in a group home. A psychologist diagnosed him with depression and schizoid personality disorder, symptoms of which include a lack of desire for social relationships, little or no sex drive and a limited range of emotions in social settings.
I hate to say it, but this sounds like it's largely the parents fault. It doesn't sound like they did enough to prevent him playing and get him better integrated.* Why was that computer even available? If he's having seizures from playing that machine should not even be available to play on!
* - I say sounds like it. I could be wrong... a parent cannot always prevent such actions of their children. The best they can do is try.
Thank the diety-of-your-choice that it is coming to and end!
Argh. It seems there is one of those unwritten Slashdot rules that dictates any story about lasers must be accompanied by posts about laser weapons... usually in the Death Ray variety. For the most part lasers make poor offensive weapons, at least in the Burning a Hole Through X variety.
(Thank you Alien54 for not suggesting such a thing)
I've posted this before but here it is again:
***************
It seems inevitable that whenever there is a story regarding lasers we get to see all sorts of silly posts about blasting people with laser.
Even antimissle lasers have a long way to go. Between power requirements, beam handling, divergence, and atmospheric interference, lasers do not make great destructive weapons.
However, they would be damned good for some nasty tricks like blinding the enemy army (or, unfortunately, civilians).
Take this scenario: a bomber/cargo style aircraft has been outfitted with a large infrared laser (similar things have been done). Fly said aircraft over the people you wish to 'zap'. Release some fireworks or other attention getting devices and when the crowd looks up turn on and start scanning the laser.
Since the laser is infrared nobody would know they are being exposed to blinding levels of light, nor would the blink/aversion reaction take place. By the time you noticed anything the permanent damage has been done. Scary huh?
Another scenario under serious consideration by police (at least here in Canada, I've participated in meetings on the subject) is the use of lasers against commercial aircraft. The idea isn't to shoot down the aircraft, but to scan at temporarily blind the pilot during final night approaches. The effect is like someone flashing a camera flash in your face when your in a dark room.
As the few moments prior to landing are the most critical, distracting and flash blinding the pilot could easily lead to the plane crashing.
Worse, new solid state lasers are available in the 3watt (plenty of power to cause permanent blindness) range and can be powered off a car with an inverter. Simply park at the end of a convenient runway at night, plug 'er in and away you go. Ok, so it's not quite that easy, but the concept is...
Doesn't that all just scare you a bit more than some silly death ray?
Note: after saying all that I want to point out that I do not support the insane regulations placed against the use of lasers in the United States by the CDRH. It's totally ridiculous and overzealous.
Technically speaking this isn't quite true - it depends on what your lasing medium consists of. While each colour line emitted will be monochromatic, a single laser is capable of producing multiple lines.
In the case of a Krypton or Helium Neon ion gas laser you will get a single line out (usually, but not necessarily, red for either of these).
However, if I look at an Argon laser with apropriate optics you get primarily Blue and Green (514nm "Green" and 488nm "Blue") lines (with combinations in between). If I put a prism to the output of my little American Laser 60x I can see 7 individual lines - 5 are of such lower power as to be virtually useless, but the primary Green and Blue are strong.
Then if you look at a Copper Vapor laser which works by evaporating copper you get two lines: an emerald green and *gold* (this type of laser was made famous during the Pink Floyd Division Bell tour).
Newer solid state are very much single line. If you ever see a very harsh green beam you are probably looking at a Nd:YAG laser. The new solid state stuff is really looking promising... much more reliable with a much longer lifespan. Now, if they could just get the Blue solid states more powerful reliable we would be laughing. A low to mid powered white-light lasershow that could fit in a briefcase! On the down side though, typically much lower power output than their ion cousins (and the YAG green is, in my opinion, really nasty).
Could almost make me miss lugging 909's around... :)
Around 9:30 last night a burrowing squirrel shorted out electrical lines causing an initial power surge followed by a blackout.
Experts believe that researchers had the magnetic containment field generators connected to a household UPS, which proved unable to keep the field in place.
The result of the containment failure has been described as being very similar to that of a "collapsing hrung." Unfortunately nobody has been able to identify what a hrung is, nor why one should choose to collapse on the CERN facility.
I know you may want one, but the only way to get companies to stop doing this kind of thing is to vote with your wallet. Otherwise, where is their insentive?
Here's (one) major problem: skills. Each successive generation after the first will be born and raised shipboard. All the teaching they receive on planets and planet life will be academic at best.
Does an education absent of any form of direct experience make for good pioneers? Especially given that there is no possibility of help from back home?
My guess it probably not...
From the Jargon Dictionary
Gates's Law: "The speed of software halves every 18 months." This oft-cited law is an ironic comment on the tendency of software bloat to outpace the every-18-month doubling in hardware caopacity per dollar predicted by Moore's Law. The reference is to Bill Gates; Microsoft is widely considered among the worst if not the worst of the perpetrators of bloat.
Hence, I believe that (Myriad's law?):
Boot Time is Inversely Proportionate to Computing Power - The more power you've got, the longer it's going to take.
Ie, my old 486DX50 took longer to bring up DOS than my 386. (The 386 behind my 286, 8086. Hell, the C64 kicked all their asses!) Primarily because of added TSRs, memory managers etc.
Then my P100 took longer to fire up... Good 'ol Windows.
Now the Athlon takes ages... init bloody RAID arrays, UTA100 controllers, SCSI devices, Windows...let windows initialize all the above plus more. Wait wait wait. Go for coffee. Wait some more.
Kind of sick really.
Hmmm, p0rn... isn't "bust" largely the point?
Such moduals exist in a limited sense, at least for the Handspring Visor. Check out the Gameface for the Visor.
For the URL impaired, it is basically a joystick & button pad that clips over the Visor for gaming.
Anyone know if they have a similar version for the PocketPC?
Seriously though, one wonders if this could be even remotely related. I doubt it highly, but it is an interesting thought...
I got a Fox popup wanting to launch Notepad.exe... how very obnoxious! Can we say CANCEL. Sheesh.
I don't need to know your velocity to know what road you're on! Think about it... you're on Highway X and you fire off a message. Well, guess what, you can only be traveling North/South or East/West. I don't know to many highways that give you more options than that. Cross reference your location with a map an I know what road you're on. Fire more than one message while traveling the same highway and I know exactly which direction you are headed.
Besides, once I know your location it's all a rather accedemic. I could simply follow you in a helicopter if I want to. To extreme? A couple of friends in cars with FRS radios should do nicely. Not to mention you can be tracked quite effectively with just your cellphone being turned on - never mind this GPS stuff. It's called triangulation.
Even antimissle lasers have a long way to go. Between power requirements, beam handling, divergence, and atmospheric interference, lasers do not make great destructive weapons.
However, they would be damned good for some nasty tricks like blinding the enemy army (or, unfortunately, civilians).
Take this scenario: a bomber/cargo style aircraft has been outfitted with a large infrared laser (similar things have been done). Fly said aircraft over the people you wish to 'zap'. Release some fireworks or other attention getting devices and when the crowd looks up turn on and start scanning the laser.
Since the laser is infrared nobody would know they are being exposed to blinding levels of light, nor would the blink/aversion reaction take place. By the time you noticed anything the permanent damage has been done. Scary huh?
Another scenario under serious consideration by police (at least here in Canada, I've participated in meetings on the subject) is the use of lasers against commercial aircraft. The idea isn't to shoot down the aircraft, but to scan at temporarily blind the pilot during final night approaches. The effect is like someone flashing a camera flash in your face when your in a dark room.
As the few moments prior to landing are the most critical, distracting and flash blinding the pilot could easily lead to the plane crashing.
Worse, new solid state lasers are available in the 3watt (plenty of power to cause permanent blindness) range and can be powered off a car with an inverter. Simply park at the end of a convenient runway at night, plug 'er in and away you go. Ok, so it's not quite that easy, but the concept is...
Doesn't that all just scare you a bit more than some silly death ray?
Note: after saying all that I want to point out that I do not support the insane regulations placed against the use of lasers in the United States by the CDRH. It's totally ridiculous and overzealous.
Since it mentions the first broadcast happened in 1901 they are talking about different firsts... first ever VS first US.
My mistake, sorry!
Then it goes on to say: "the Marconi operation at this location was initiated by the young inventor in 1901. However, in December of that year, due to a number of setbacks, he had to use temporary facilities on St. John's, Newfoundland to prove his theory--wireless could cross the Atlantic!"
Doesn't that present a complete turn around from their previous statement?
In any event, the reenactment link has it correct with: "December 12, 2001 will mark the 100th anniversary of the first Trans-Atlantic radio transmission. That signal was transmitted across the Atlantic from Poldhu, Cornwall England to St John's, Newfoundland."
That would be St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
The fundamental problem here in finding this stuff is that it's all pretty much black. And the basic colour of space, you see, is also black. So how are we supposed to see it?
Ah, but what if I knew what it looked like before setting the whole thing up? If my hologram looked like the original, as I saw it in the first place, then is this not accurate?
I suppose you could argue collapsing wave functions and quantum probability, but I'd think that was pushing it, no?
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but according to the article this process relies on quantum entanglement. As far as I know this has never been achieved on a large scale - only in single pairs.
As I see it here this would require two lasers to be emitting entangled beams. I've never heard of a way this can be done. Without, as far as I can see, this process would not work. Seems to be a rather large sticking point... though I don't know how many photon pairs they actually need out of those beams. Anyone know more about this?
None the less, the theory is 'spooky' indeed.
Around 3am last night a blast shook the neighborhood blowing out windows and killing 10 people including 4 young men who were in the immediate blast zone when it occurred. These men apparently were also responsible for the explosion itself.
The four men described as "Geeks" were apparently attempting to "Overclock" their system. Witnesses say one man was last seen carrying a large jug of Alcohol he claimed would "ch!ll th!5 f()k3r t0 d@ b0n3!".
The investigation continues...
The first was Castle Wolfenstein, a great old game originally for the Apple computer (as in II, II+, IIc kind of thing, not Mac).
For those looking to re-live the past, a copy is available here.