Sunday, February 26, 2006

Microsoft Cranial Expansion

The natives are out in force at MS as the sky comes back out in Redmond. Tempers are flaring as yours truly tends to incite people by knowing what I am talking about. It is actually amazing the level of reasoning existent - or non-existent - at MS right now. I know that Redmond makes you dizzy but give me a break.

Some believe that MS has better products then everyone else, some believe that MS is better off getting more layers consisting of thousands of "no-birds." Some believe that the antitrust troubles are the fault of others (?). I am always torn between feeling bad for the consumer and feeling bad for the competent cogs, and so I tend to comment when it is obvious the comment is either from a mgr who is the bane of efficiency or a "hanger-on" who feels bad that he really is a "warm body."

At any rate, I will continue to speak my mind regarding the MS that is and the MS that could be no matter who has a problem. The latest slate of comments is a sign that Vista will ship with at least 100,000 bugs and I don't think I would use IE 7 if my life depended on it( and Firefox's memory leaks are REALLY annoying).

Especially when disruntled assholes are telling me they know I couldn't possibly have a computer at work and at home and be trusted enough to not have an Internet blocker. Once again Mini in his infinite wisdom suggests that maybe I should use the anonymous option when I post so that mighty idiots aren't offended when they see "TheKhalif(maybe I shouldn't have posted my pic)." He actually thinks maybe I should talk more about MS here but that won't happen. This blog is called "Faster Than The Times" which basically disallows too much talk of the "Ever-Lumbering Juggernaut of Redmond."

Besides, nothing will ever change as long as Lord Bill is the Chairman and Sir Steve is at the helm so why should I burn cycles on MY blog talking about what they could, should or might do when I can talk about cool stuff like magnetic ICs and advanced nuclear power sources?

Anyway as I always say I wish all the guys at Redmond the best but since I know MS isn't going anywhere unless the Cell is used for everything in a new PC that has an OS that plays game and supports domain security I know they are screwed.


The funny thing is that all of these white guys now know what it's like to be treated like a black man - being told no matter how good you do there is some problem (can you say stack rank?).

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The Immaculate Conception

Today we want to talk about something that has long concerned us. It is something that most don't believe in but yet it seems to be a real part of life in America. I can see the 4 people who have read this blog saying what the hell is this fool talking about? What does the immaculate conception have to do with America?

The answer is simple. I can bet you have seen this occur at least 3 times in your life. It occurs everytime a Hollywood attempts to integrate the movies. I'm sure most of us have seen the film "Phenomenon" with John Travlota, a whole cast of white people and Forrest Whitaker. At least Diana Ross was mentioned, even though it was as some untouchable creation off in the "ether." How is it possible that a black man could misraculously appear in the middle of BumFuck, Wherever USA and not have a parent, sibling, or "culturally-equivalent" compatriot?

Again, the answer is simple the unending quest by the forces in Hollywood to minimalize the importance of minorities in "their" world.

Other examples of the "IC" are Star Wars, both Billy Dee Williams and Samuel L. Jackson portrayed a "racial-variety" that possessed the inate ability to spontaneously reproduce, the recent werewolf flick "Cursed" with Christina Ricci, a whole cast of white teens and Mya, playing the dual role of the first black person to get killed and the only black person in the movie.

This phenomenon seems to occur with greater frequency as more rappers end up in feature films. Take the epic remake, "The Flight of the Phoenix" where "StickyFingas" and Tyrese play the role of the endearing yet obedient and clinging black men who seem to never find a woman of color nor have any mentionable family. At least the rich translator was rich.

Other notable examples include the poignant drama "LA Confidential," starring a particularly "insensitive" Kevin Spacey, yes I know there were 4 blacks in it but they all seemed amazingly detached from the reproductive process as no black women were anywhere to be found. Sure it was about "upscale callgirls" but hey what better way to belittle the whole race than to have a black girl with a sad story who attracts Jewish men?

Following closely behind is the campy yet endearing "Resident Evil: Apocalypse," starring Milla Jovovich, a large beast, a cast of white people and an unknown black character actor who dies badly.

Then there's the touching "Ladder 49" with Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta (I guess he can only work with one black on the set at a time), where Morris Chestnut has an invisible family who is never seen even while he is recoverng from a melted face (compassion thy name is not Hollywood). Jeff Goldblum stars in the comical romp, "Holy Man" where Eddie Murphy apparently lived with a woman who was either a real ho or practiced in the art of asexual reproduction. John's talents are again tapped for "SwordFish" a movie that amazingly has a black male and female - even though they never interact or appear in frame together - one of whom even survives through the end of the film ( amazingly Don Cheadle is one of the only black actors to never play gay or "wimpy" part. He even has so far avoided the interracial role, though he came close in "Rosewood").

Another new entry is "Paparrazi" (does anyone know how to spell that?) with Cole Hauser (who?), a whole lot of white people and a cameo by Chris Rock as a pizza guy who complains about police harassment (heaven forbid). "The Edge" a tense thriller starring Anthony Hopkins reminisces about the last black guy getting eaten by a bear (it hints that the rest died like "Ice Age's" dodo as Oz's Harold Perrineau nearly removes his leg trying to make a spear - wow at least that kills the spearchucker moniker). Clint Eastwood loaned his talents at least twice to the phenomenon in the films "Heartbreak Ridge," where Mario Van peeples has token duty and the Academy Award winning "Unforgiven" as obviously no other blacks made it through slavery so Morgan Freeman had to settle for a mute Indian squaw - who appears as the only other race to exist at the time). Speaking of Unforgiven, I guess blacks should be glad that at least we appear in some "mainstream" movies as something other than "cultural comedians" like the ever present lone chinese cook or the quintessential hispanic criminal.

Many other examples of this amazing phenomenon exist but the list is so long that it would take until tomorrow.
SO the next time someone questions the immaculate conception direct them to the Box Office.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

High Definition Images

Welcome to the next in our series of technology articles. This next one is actually one of my favorites as the dissemination of visual information is a key to many of simulation routines. Anyway, way back in 1988 I was looking at image reproduction and graphical progression. It is an interesting topic as it is much easier than logic circuits. You can acually fake a lot of the facets of images repro.

For example, from a distance perception of images starts to change and by the same token, proximity can also cause perception aberrations. SOme people see better from far and some see better closer. Also, the amount of absorbed and refracted light can change this perception even more.

When looking at the various methodologies used one can see that sometimes Technicolor outshines ILM. After lookig at the various types of surface that can be used to "imprint" digital or ananlog signals representing images, the most efficient for reuse seems to be Au. Modeling CrO tapes and 8mm film, one can see that the adherence factor of the material to its base is a very important factor.

Of course, another major obstale is the "imprint" method. The CCD method uses a series of transceiver devices to record more than just the amount of light. By using PID tech it becomes possible to record luminance, chrominance, etc in the same data stream. This enables digital manipualiton by allowing each stream to be adjusted there by changing or "editing" the picture.

Multiple pictures can then be sequenced and displayed in order which actually creates video. ANother breakthrough was the use of colored lenses and high energy light. By tuning the base frequency of the imprint material it is possible to actually reject any frequency of light or increase either of the underlying streams. Physicists have recently found that intense fields can even deflect light. Using phase angular field gemeration it is even possible to "morph" objects merely by adjusting various fields in the vector space.

This enables even greater flexibilty in editing.

Oh well, gotta go.

Vaporware, we don't need no stinking vaporware!

Hello again from IT Central as we present another rousing episode of "The VaporWare Awards." Actually thi sis from Wired but what the hell as long as I don't copy and paste.......

The runner ups this year are varied and kind of expected with the usual suspects showing up, like Duke Nukem Forever, the perennial favorite from 3DRealms. I can't believe that is still being developed. There was a showing (well, not really) from TiVo who are still promising cable card HD. Blu Ray and HD-DVD also showed up ( or didn't) as 2006 is here with nary a disc in sight.

Next up wasn't The new Legend Of Zelda for GameCube and Team Fortress 2 from ( almost) Valve. Afew other faces weren't seen but this year's (or last years) big winners were (trumpets please) Microsoft and Google.

Microsoft has perhaps defined vaporware with the nearly nonexistent Vista and it's maybe not so friendly IE7 sandbox buddy. There were no public betas of either product and the buzz has died down to a very quiet whisper.

Thsi is totally opposite Google who have been given the distinction of never not being in beta for their major 2005 product offerings. Check out this link for full coverage.

2005 Vaporware

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Ionic propulsion

The latest in our faster that the times posts emphasizes ionic propulsion another of 1989s many breakthroughs. It started as a high compression turbine chamber, but the simulations run tended to show that it is possible to do nearly the same thing with hydrogen ions. By applying poles to the turbines and an intermediate opposing field, the introduction of ions into the vector space allows for "magnetic compression."
By pulsing the intermediate field while also transversely pulsing the oppsoite turbine poles, high energy ions can then be propelled from the vector space applying an external force to the chamber.

By using a large enough ion emittance surface it is then possible to mimic the thrust applied from actually combusting hydrogen or even heavier nitrogen (though on a lower scale). WHile modeling the propellant force achieved through combustion, I began to look for ways to actually "ignite" these ions. Simulations showed that certain em frequencies can be used to apply fields to the ion clusters to increase their motion.


At that point, I had actually modeled extraorbital propulsion, which works slightly differently than atmospheric propulsion because of the tremendous forces fo gravity between bodies and the lack of volumetric pressure. Probably the hardest thing was to decouple from the ion source. It was a real bitch too. Funny enough that work led to the big deal.... teleportation. Actually it was a combination of that and laser work, but we probably won't talk too much about that.

Magnetic Bearings

Next in our series of techno-speak, we have (trumpets, please) magnetic bearings. AN interesting technique that prevents larger mechanisms from needing more lubricant to coat moving connections. The technique came to me in 1989 ( boy that was a busy year) while I was working on axles for personal transport units. Since I have an aversion to grease I had no choice but to realize that by compressing two magnets very close together it is possible to suspend the moving portion on a localzed magnetic field. The effect would be similar to a mag-lev (magnetic levitation) device. Since the two parts don't actually come into contact, the design virtually eliminates wear of bearings, enabling more efficient designs.

Using electromagnetic sources also larger structures to be desugned without complex manufaturing processes (Try smashing together two 100lb rings that are the same pole).
This comes in handy for "high compression turbine chambers" as propulsion turbines tend to spin at 10s of 1000s of RPMs.