Fur-suiting folks have a big problem with vision. You're usually looking out through mesh fabric, often recessed and colored. Your vision is limited and peripheral vision is almost nonexistent. And that's if your fursona (furry persona) is a predator species. If your character is a prey species, your eyes aren't in the right place, which looks odd. A system (which could be hacked) that provides a camera-and-display for each eye would let one mount the cameras where your line of sight should be and allow the mask to have eyes in the proper place.
I guess I'm the only one here old enough to remember John W. Campbell's space operas in which he postulated two materials made from "crystallized light". One material, lux, was a super-strong, transparent, insulator. The other, relux, was a perfectly reflecting superconductor. Look up his novel "Islands of Space.
I do read a lot, mostly for entertainment. I'm averaging about three novels a week. I love that I can pack a dozen books for a trip without worrying about overweight luggage charges. At the price I'm paying per book, I'm now reading in more genres and reading more authors in the genre I always read a lot of. My model of Kindle doubles as an MP3 player, so I can have my tunes along as in-flight entertainment, too.
So perhaps these senior moments I've been having are not so much from being over the hill as from the fact that as I've gotten older I get less sleep overnight?
Except that the beaches in Hawaii are considered public land -- nobody owns them and access to the seashore must be granted by owners of abutting property.
My truename appears in the list of "Multicians". I still have my copy of The Design of the Multics Operating System.
One of the things that Multics did better than anything since was a feature called dynamic linking. In Multics, linking to a DLL was done via a symbolic reference resolved at runtime, rather than a reference to an ordinal (as in Windows). The Multics file system allowed you to have multiple names on the same file. The combination of those two features resulted in the ability to hot-plug DLLs. Here's how:
1. You have a program which wants to take a sine function. It's got a link to "fortran.lib:sin" (no, the Multics syntax for the entry point was different, but you get the idea).
2. The fortran guru decides he wants to upgrade the fortran library while your program is running.
3. When your program first invoked the sin() function, the symbolic link is resolved to the existing fortran.lib DLL and it's loaded into your pdd (process space).
4. The fortran guru adds the name "fortran.lib_bak" to the existing library file.
5. The fortran guru creates his library as "fortran.lib_new".
6. The fortran guru moves the name "fortran.lib" from the old library to the new one.
7. Immediately, user programs which have not already linked to the old DLL will now link to the new one as symbolic references are encountered and resolved.
8. The fortran guru removes the name "fortran.lib_new" from his new library, which has no effect except to free up that name for use in a future upgrade.
9. Eventually, all user programs which referenced the old library finish and the old library can be deleted. Everyone now uses the new library,
When I first learned about this, I thought is was really cool. 35 years later, I still do.
I have maintained for years that if you want to assess a society's technological level there are two fields you need to examine. The first -- and sadly, probably the most obvious -- is weaponry. But the second is music-making. No matter what the level of technology a society is capable of, the highest available tech seems to always wind up in their musical instruments. If you have a stick and a hollow log, you make a drum. If you can make a bow, you make a one-string guitar. If you can drill a hole in a piece of wood, you make a flute. If you can smelt brass, you make a horn. Or a gong.
One example: one of the first electronic musical instruments was the Theremin. It was invented when the ink on the patent for the vacuum tube was barely dry.
Another example: one of the earliest computer programs played music.
Disclaimer: I am not an anthropologist. I'd be interested in knowing a counterexample, though.
He wrote an essay pointing out that the biggest problem with his three laws of robotics was that a robot might well have trouble defining "human". His test cases -- if I remember right; it was 40 years ago that I read the essay -- were (1) a baby [human but not competent to give a robot an order], (2) an adult with mechanical prosthetics [human only if you examine the right parts], (3) another robot and (4) a chimpanzee. The problem is a lot more complicated than the Three Laws makes it sound!
When the technology reaches the point where you can use a 3D printer to decorate a cake or make fancy chocolates by the dozen (hopefully, make both and other things besides) in a matter of minutes then a 3D printer will find space next to the coffee maker. At least in the sort of home where a gourmet kitchen would see daily use.
...hope that I never have to learn how to mine coal. Despite what Heinlein said about specialization, I'm much better at writing code than at mining. (And yes, I did a little recreational mining a couple of decades ago when I was into mineral collecting as a hobby.)
...is the longer Martian day (sol). What will that extra 1/2 hour (approximately) do to a species evolved for a shorter day? I suspect this will be another source of stress, especially as "interplanetary" communications schedules will fall in and out of step with sleep schedule.
by Robert A. Heinlein postulated a solar cell that would emit light http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.... The story came at it from the opposite direction -- a lighting panel that turned out to also work as a photovoltaic cell. Heinlein's story was published in 1940. Only took 3/4 of a century for engineering to catch up with science fiction.
Slashdot Mirror
I just got on line after going to the local office supply store for another ream of printer paper.
Fur-suiting folks have a big problem with vision. You're usually looking out through mesh fabric, often recessed and colored. Your vision is limited and peripheral vision is almost nonexistent. And that's if your fursona (furry persona) is a predator species. If your character is a prey species, your eyes aren't in the right place, which looks odd. A system (which could be hacked) that provides a camera-and-display for each eye would let one mount the cameras where your line of sight should be and allow the mask to have eyes in the proper place.
I guess I'm the only one here old enough to remember John W. Campbell's space operas in which he postulated two materials made from "crystallized light". One material, lux, was a super-strong, transparent, insulator. The other, relux, was a perfectly reflecting superconductor. Look up his novel "Islands of Space.
Be sure to shoot any albatrosses that fly near. (It's been decades since I read Who Goes There.)
The case for life in the oceans which appear to exist below the ice crust of Europa just got a little stronger.
From now on, I'm paying for everything with doubloons.
I do read a lot, mostly for entertainment. I'm averaging about three novels a week. I love that I can pack a dozen books for a trip without worrying about overweight luggage charges. At the price I'm paying per book, I'm now reading in more genres and reading more authors in the genre I always read a lot of. My model of Kindle doubles as an MP3 player, so I can have my tunes along as in-flight entertainment, too.
I've bought over 1300 eBooks from their Kindle library. At $3 to $4 each... well, a Slashdot reader can certainly do the math.
I'm not exactly an armchair advisor. I develop software for a company which makes a medical product.
That's a flavor of non-profit which is not a charitable organization.
Disclaimer: I am in no way a member of the legal profession nor am I trained in law.
and including the biocompatibility test results report. What you make a medical device out of matters!
Siskel gave it two thumbs down.
So perhaps these senior moments I've been having are not so much from being over the hill as from the fact that as I've gotten older I get less sleep overnight?
I'm not sure mine will be. I write code for a living.
Except that the beaches in Hawaii are considered public land -- nobody owns them and access to the seashore must be granted by owners of abutting property.
My truename appears in the list of "Multicians". I still have my copy of The Design of the Multics Operating System.
One of the things that Multics did better than anything since was a feature called dynamic linking. In Multics, linking to a DLL was done via a symbolic reference resolved at runtime, rather than a reference to an ordinal (as in Windows). The Multics file system allowed you to have multiple names on the same file. The combination of those two features resulted in the ability to hot-plug DLLs. Here's how:
1. You have a program which wants to take a sine function. It's got a link to "fortran.lib:sin" (no, the Multics syntax for the entry point was different, but you get the idea).
2. The fortran guru decides he wants to upgrade the fortran library while your program is running.
3. When your program first invoked the sin() function, the symbolic link is resolved to the existing fortran.lib DLL and it's loaded into your pdd (process space).
4. The fortran guru adds the name "fortran.lib_bak" to the existing library file.
5. The fortran guru creates his library as "fortran.lib_new".
6. The fortran guru moves the name "fortran.lib" from the old library to the new one.
7. Immediately, user programs which have not already linked to the old DLL will now link to the new one as symbolic references are encountered and resolved.
8. The fortran guru removes the name "fortran.lib_new" from his new library, which has no effect except to free up that name for use in a future upgrade.
9. Eventually, all user programs which referenced the old library finish and the old library can be deleted. Everyone now uses the new library,
When I first learned about this, I thought is was really cool. 35 years later, I still do.
I have maintained for years that if you want to assess a society's technological level there are two fields you need to examine. The first -- and sadly, probably the most obvious -- is weaponry. But the second is music-making. No matter what the level of technology a society is capable of, the highest available tech seems to always wind up in their musical instruments. If you have a stick and a hollow log, you make a drum. If you can make a bow, you make a one-string guitar. If you can drill a hole in a piece of wood, you make a flute. If you can smelt brass, you make a horn. Or a gong.
One example: one of the first electronic musical instruments was the Theremin. It was invented when the ink on the patent for the vacuum tube was barely dry. Another example: one of the earliest computer programs played music.
Disclaimer: I am not an anthropologist. I'd be interested in knowing a counterexample, though.
He wrote an essay pointing out that the biggest problem with his three laws of robotics was that a robot might well have trouble defining "human". His test cases -- if I remember right; it was 40 years ago that I read the essay -- were (1) a baby [human but not competent to give a robot an order], (2) an adult with mechanical prosthetics [human only if you examine the right parts], (3) another robot and (4) a chimpanzee. The problem is a lot more complicated than the Three Laws makes it sound!
When the technology reaches the point where you can use a 3D printer to decorate a cake or make fancy chocolates by the dozen (hopefully, make both and other things besides) in a matter of minutes then a 3D printer will find space next to the coffee maker. At least in the sort of home where a gourmet kitchen would see daily use.
I built this kit in 1965. I'm still using it. It has operated flawlessly since the day I put it into service.
The heartbleed bug could inform you of that, perhaps.
Yup. Simple. It's the engineering that's not so simple. :)
...hope that I never have to learn how to mine coal. Despite what Heinlein said about specialization, I'm much better at writing code than at mining. (And yes, I did a little recreational mining a couple of decades ago when I was into mineral collecting as a hobby.)
...is the longer Martian day (sol). What will that extra 1/2 hour (approximately) do to a species evolved for a shorter day? I suspect this will be another source of stress, especially as "interplanetary" communications schedules will fall in and out of step with sleep schedule.
by Robert A. Heinlein postulated a solar cell that would emit light http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.... The story came at it from the opposite direction -- a lighting panel that turned out to also work as a photovoltaic cell. Heinlein's story was published in 1940. Only took 3/4 of a century for engineering to catch up with science fiction.