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> I thought that was fibreglass...
For very low production volumes it could be, but for any car that
everyone has heard of it will be moulded plastic. Note that high
strength plastics are usually glass-filled, so in a way they are the
same as fibre-glass. It's just the glass particles are tiny so that it
doesn't affect the appearance, and more importantly the plastic can go
through the injection moulding machine. Things like your phone casing
and your monitor case/stand are likely to be glass filled plastic, it's
a very cheap way to get a lot of strength and toughness.
> What I did see, that was quite interesting, was a guy who "studies
> nature" to try to look for clever ideas that we can copy. One of his
> suggestions was to create colour by diffraction rather than using
> chemical dyes. Chemicals degrade in the Sun, but a grating doesn't
> suddenly change size just because you hit it with a ton of UV...
Presumably you'd need a layer of protection on top of the diffraction
grating anyway to prevent damage, so I struggle to see any advantage
than just putting a UV protective coating on top of a normal
plastic/paint (like cars have for example).
> My understanding was that displays aren't increasing their ppi rating
> because 100% of all Windows software assumes a fixed 72ppi, and if you
> increased the dot pitch everything would become too tiny to see.
I think that 100% figure has been coming down and will continue to do
so. Once people get devices like the new Samsung Windows 8 laptop/tablet
(3200x1800 13") software vendors will be forced to comply. Anyway, even
if Windows software doesn't change people use Android and iOS which
works fine at very high ppi.
> Fibre to the house is a simple concept. Why didn't they do this before?
> Oh, yes, that's right - because fibre is so astronomically expensive
> that nobody can afford it...
And why is it now possible to make it so much cheaper than before?
Perhaps because there have been new manufacturing processes invented and
developed and new materials? But wait, nothing has changed since the
industrial revolution!
> Tangential, but... one of the 3D technologies I saw on Tomorrow's World
> involved scanning a laser across a corrugated screen. It also involved
> using "a supercomputer" to control the motors scanning the laser; I'm
> guessing today it would be less of a problem. But who really wants to
> look at spinning monochrome wireframes?
I think I posted this before, but a friend from University set this up:
http://lightblueoptics.com/videos/holographic-laser-projection-technology/
Given that he appears to have won several times in the IOCCC recently
(tangental, but a full PC emulator capable of running DOS games in under
4KB of C source?!) I guess it didn't come to much :-)
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On 25/04/2014 09:42, scott wrote:
>
> http://lightblueoptics.com/videos/holographic-laser-projection-technology/
>
Is that Stephen Fry doing the voice-over?
John
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>> What I did see, that was quite interesting, was a guy who "studies
>> nature" to try to look for clever ideas that we can copy. One of his
>> suggestions was to create colour by diffraction rather than using
>> chemical dyes. Chemicals degrade in the Sun, but a grating doesn't
>> suddenly change size just because you hit it with a ton of UV...
>
> Presumably you'd need a layer of protection on top of the diffraction
> grating anyway to prevent damage, so I struggle to see any advantage
> than just putting a UV protective coating on top of a normal
> plastic/paint (like cars have for example).
Presumably what you do is make a translucent layer which has inclusions
inside it that refract the light. So the outer surfaces are smooth, yet
you still get colour. Hard to see how you could do that cheaply though.
Has anybody invented a UV coating that actually works yet?
>> Fibre to the house is a simple concept. Why didn't they do this before?
>> Oh, yes, that's right - because fibre is so astronomically expensive
>> that nobody can afford it...
>
> And why is it now possible to make it so much cheaper than before?
> Perhaps because there have been new manufacturing processes invented and
> developed and new materials? But wait, nothing has changed since the
> industrial revolution!
I'm sure things have changed. Just perhaps not as rapidly and
dramatically as the original revolution.
> I think I posted this before, but a friend from University set this up:
>
> http://lightblueoptics.com/videos/holographic-laser-projection-technology/
>
> Given that he appears to have won several times in the IOCCC recently
> (tangental, but a full PC emulator capable of running DOS games in under
> 4KB of C source?!) I guess it didn't come to much :-)
This is very interesting. From what I can gather, the primary problem is
the absurd amount of computer power required. (Oh, and the fact that
it's currently only monochrome - again, presumably due to computer power.)
I would imagine making something like this for static images would be
comparatively easy. The hard part is doing moving images. (Aside from
computer power, data transfer rates might be problematic too...)
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>> I thought that was fibreglass...
>
> For very low production volumes it could be, but for any car that
> everyone has heard of it will be moulded plastic. Note that high
> strength plastics are usually glass-filled, so in a way they are the
> same as fibre-glass.
Both are the same.
Traditionnal fibreglass = sheets of woven glass fibre dipped in eposy resin.
Newer high strength plastics = bits of glass or carbon fibre sprinkled
in epoxy or polyacetate resin.
Also, car manufacturers (and patio furniture manufacturers, for some
reason) do not like to call them plastics because people have a tendency
to associate the word with cheap and flimsy polymers like polyethylene
or polypropylene, so they'll use words like "polymer", "DuraFlex(TM)",
or "synthetic resin".
>> What I did see, that was quite interesting, was a guy who "studies
>> nature" to try to look for clever ideas that we can copy. One of his
>> suggestions was to create colour by diffraction rather than using
>> chemical dyes. Chemicals degrade in the Sun, but a grating doesn't
>> suddenly change size just because you hit it with a ton of UV...
>
Officer: Ma'am, what color was the car that hit you?
Woman: All of them.
Officer: WAT?
Woman: Well, you know how a CD changes color when you move them in your
hand, the car was like that!
>> My understanding was that displays aren't increasing their ppi rating
>> because 100% of all Windows software assumes a fixed 72ppi, and if you
>> increased the dot pitch everything would become too tiny to see.
Most LCD screend have had 96ppi dot pitch for over 15 years. The IBM
9513 T55A monitor I have on this desk, which was bought as part of my
personal Y2K remediation plan is running at 96ppi and I don't remember
having issues with badly designed dialox boxes. Unless 100% of the
software you use is made for Windows 3.1, this would be
Yet-Another-Bogus-Assumption-Made-By-Andy.
>> Fibre to the house is a simple concept. Why didn't they do this before?
>> Oh, yes, that's right - because fibre is so astronomically expensive
>> that nobody can afford it...
No. Because they didn't have BW issues with the copper cabling that was
already installed, so there was little justification to rewire eintire
neigborhoods (the expensive part is the two guys moving around people's
backyards with ladders, not the orange tube and the 2 or 4 fibre strands
in it). The advent of HD TV has changed that. There is now a need for
higher BW to each home - instead of just to the neighborhoods' junction
box - so telecoms are rushing to put fibre to the home.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On 26/04/14 20:38, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Yet-Another-Bogus-Assumption-Made-By-Andy.
>
From now on, this is to be known as a YABAMBA
John
--
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children
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> Officer: Ma'am, what color was the car that hit you?
> Woman: All of them.
> Officer: WAT?
> Woman: Well, you know how a CD changes color when you move them in your
> hand, the car was like that!
FWIW, apparently this already exists.
Well, not the entire rainbow, but apparently by suspending metal
particles in the paint, you can get two contrasting colours.
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On Sat, 26 Apr 2014 21:16:07 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> FWIW, apparently this already exists.
Yes. It has for years. :)
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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On 26/04/2014 5:13 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
> I'm sure things have changed. Just perhaps not as rapidly and
> dramatically as the original revolution.
I don't think that you realise how long the "industrial revelation".
went on for. At least for sixty possibly eighty years. Not exactly
rapid, from a historical perspective. It just seems like that looking at
it from the 21st Century.
--
Regards
Stephen
I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.
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> Presumably what you do is make a translucent layer which has inclusions
> inside it that refract the light. So the outer surfaces are smooth, yet
> you still get colour. Hard to see how you could do that cheaply though.
Well you could just make it in two parts, so long as the two materials
had different refractive indices. A bit like how a CD is made. Maybe you
could use some photo-etch process on the first layer, borrowed from IC
manufacturing?
> Has anybody invented a UV coating that actually works yet?
Yes, people rely on them not to get skin cancer or go blind! Also the
one on your car paint works. I'm sure you can find spectral response
curves if you are interested.
> I'm sure things have changed. Just perhaps not as rapidly and
> dramatically as the original revolution.
You could argue that in some ways things are changing even faster now.
Continuing with your plastics example, at the start hardly anyone used
plastic and development was slow. Today plastic is used in almost
everything and there are millions of different types. I'm sure if you
plotted a graph of the number of new plastics invented against time it
would be going upwards.
> This is very interesting. From what I can gather, the primary problem is
> the absurd amount of computer power required.
Indeed, it looks like they had to spend most of the effort trying to
reduce the computing power needed whilst maintaining a decent image
quality. Maybe in 5 or 10 years someone will come back to this
technology and it will be able to take off.
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> Also, car manufacturers (and patio furniture manufacturers, for some
> reason) do not like to call them plastics because people have a tendency
> to associate the word with cheap and flimsy polymers like polyethylene
> or polypropylene, so they'll use words like "polymer", "DuraFlex(TM)",
> or "synthetic resin".
Never mind that those cheap and flimsy polymers are exactly what you
need for something like a car bumper (you want it to bend rather than
crack or split when deformed). It's also odd how in the past shiny
glossy plastics were seen as cheap, so everyone applied texture to the
surfaces to make it look less "plasticy", but now it seems be back in
fashion to have a high gloss finish (much to the dismay of the plastic
moulders).
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