Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Neubob on January 01, 2007, 02:25:39 PM
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A little demo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lpa9K4-80Y)
The catalog (http://www.wickedlasers.com/products_overview.php)
The laser in the video is less than one third as powerful as some of the ones available on that website. Although the $3000 price tag is a bit high, the potential fun factor is priceless. I can already see applications in indoor insect control, as well as zapping soon-to-be former friends from across the room.
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"You'll burn your eye out, kid" :lol
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"indoor insect control"
Have a look here (http://www.wickedlasers.com/videos.php) and do a search for "birds". It's surprisingly humane.
These are milliwatt lasers. The University of Rochester in New York is building a more powerful, petawatt model here (http://omegaep.lle.rochester.edu/), although I imagine you have to have a very good reason to book time with it. The photograph on their homepage looks remarkably like the Gary Numan stage set here (http://www.musicstack.com/item/167157438/numan,gary/living+ornaments), including a pyramid triangle thing!
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So the 200 milliwatt can burn through a balloon in less than a second, and through foil in several seconds. I wonder what level of output they'll need to achieve before the government decides to control their distribution.
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They already do. You have to have a license to own one above a certain wattage (can't remember what exactly I'll get back).
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And here you go-
http://www.lasercompliance.com/us-regs.htm
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I was hoping the bird would have a hole burned through it, or at least set on fire. :(
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I watched some of the videos. I can do all that and more with my $30 Red Ryder.
If it was powerful enough to discreetly burn a hole thru the radiator of the putz tailgating me on I-24, I'd consider it.
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WTF is a "petawatt"?
Tennessee Girls Know Marines Use No Protection
Tera
Giga
Mega
Kilo
Mili
Micro (u)
Nano
Pico
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
WTF is a "petawatt"?
The unit of crying power of any given PETA member
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Terawatt (10^12 watt)
Petawatt (10^15 watt)
Exawatt (10^18 watt)
Zettawatt (10^21 watt)
Yottawatt (10^24 watt)
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Originally posted by Viking
Terawatt (10^12 watt)
Petawatt (10^15 watt)
Exawatt (10^18 watt)
Zettawatt (10^21 watt)
Yottawatt (10^24 watt)
How come the laser idiots get to make up their own scale?
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They are the common orders of magnitude above Terra in the Metric system.
Yotta
Zetta
Exa
Peta
Tera
Giga
Mega
Kilo
Mili
Micro
Nano
Pico
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Originally posted by VOR
I watched some of the videos. I can do all that and more with my $30 Red Ryder.
If this statement doesn't embody the spirit of technological innovation, I don't know what does.
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Unless the friggin laser hums because it is so powerful, an air gun is not a replacement. It still has to be cocked, loaded and shot, all loud operations.
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I embrace (not embody) the spirit of technological innovation, but not to the tune of $3K for a device that can eventually get hot enough to ignite a match if I hold it steady.
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Yeah, but sharks with frikkin' Red Ryders strapped to their heads is just lame.
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There's a book I've probably mentioned before that's relevant to this discussion, it's called 'The Innovators Dilemma'. It talks about the concept of disruptive technology, something that isn't necessarily cheaper or better when it first appears, but can end up replacing existing technology because it eventually becomes BOTH cheaper and better. A good example is hydraulics vs. cable operated earth movers. The cable operated stuff came first, and was wide spread in the industry. A company thinks "hey, hydraulics would be handy" and makes a ditch digger (bobcat) for tractors. In the beginning, it's more expensive and less capable technology, but the company keeps developing it because there are advantages, including scalability and safety.
Eventually, the first big hydraulic earth movers start showing up. They aren't as powerful as the cable operated beasts, and they're more expensive, but they keep developing. By the time the cable-operated earthmover companies realized that hydraulics (which the had dismissed) were the future, it was too late for them to mount effective R&D campaigns. Not a single one of the major manufacturers survived the transition to hydraulics. Same thing happened with the transition from 8" HDs to 5.25" HD platters, or from 5.25" platters to 3.5" platters, except one or two companies survived the last transition because they saw what happened previously.
Laser hand weapons are currently less capable, more expensive, and less practical than chemical hand weapons. But will that always be the case? Consider this: No moving parts. Energy storage is improving every day. Toys that used to use relays and moving contacts to have blinking lights and make sounds are using little IC chips now because they're more reliable and cheaper to build than mechanical toys with moving parts.
With this in mind, I have no doubt that it's possible that cheap and reliable energy weapons will be in our future. The history of technology development pretty much guarantees it. They may not be 'phasers' or buck rogers death ray pistols, but the promise of lower production cost and higher potential reliability is hard to beat.
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Originally posted by VOR
I embrace (not embody) the spirit of technological innovation, but not to the tune of $3K for a device that can eventually get hot enough to ignite a match if I hold it steady.
Everything big, impressive and practical starts small, overpriced and novel, as Chairboy said... $3k or not, when something the size of a pen can burn through something from across the room, I start imagining what they'll do in another 5-10 years.
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Time to research and find a few small companies to drop some money into that are on the edge of this research and development.
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Why is the 40mW blue laser more expensive than a 300mW green laser?
The blue of course has as smaller wavelength allowing for more energy to penetrate, but I'd rather have the larger wavelength in most instances in order to transfer more energy to the target's surface.
A thousand bucks cheaper for 300 mW vs 40, I'd have to go green.
Name: 200mW 250mW 300mW
Range (miles): 90 100 120
YUMMY!
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"death ray"
Which reminds me of this (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2585) article, which is about Lockheed's new aircraft laser, a 100-KW model which could "selectively destroy ground targets such as communication lines, power grids, and fuel dumps, or even target the fuel tanks on vehicles" and might potentially enter service in 2015.
The article is worried that people might be accidentally blinded by the laser, although at the same time it seems totally oblivious to the possiblity that it might be used to kill people, by slicing them up like in Logan's Run.
Instant countermeasure = polished tin-foil.
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Originally posted by Apeking
"death ray"
Which reminds me of this (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2585) article, which is about Lockheed's new aircraft laser, a 100-KW model which could "selectively destroy ground targets such as communication lines, power grids, and fuel dumps, or even target the fuel tanks on vehicles" and might potentially enter service in 2015.
The article is worried that people might be accidentally blinded by the laser, although at the same time it seems totally oblivious to the possiblity that it might be used to kill people, by slicing them up like in Logan's Run.
Instant countermeasure = polished tin-foil.
did mitch taylor solve the overheating problem, and did kent make the mirror for the professor?
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Originally posted by Warspawn
Why is the 40mW blue laser more expensive than a 300mW green laser?
The blue of course has as smaller wavelength allowing for more energy to penetrate, but I'd rather have the larger wavelength in most instances in order to transfer more energy to the target's surface.
A thousand bucks cheaper for 300 mW vs 40, I'd have to go green.
Name: 200mW 250mW 300mW
Range (miles): 90 100 120
YUMMY!
I'm pretty sure, but don't quote me on this, is because blue lasers are more difficult to create. While the red was the first and easiest.
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Originally posted by Mustaine
did mitch taylor solve the overheating problem, and did kent make the mirror for the professor?
I think all progress was halted by the unit's predisposition to self-destruction immediately following the brief firing sequence, thus yeilding a great deal of popcorn.
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Real Genius 2 has just been announced, btw.
I (heart) Toxic Waste
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Originally posted by Chairboy
Real Genius 2 has just been announced, btw.
I (heart) Toxic Waste
Will Ice again be the antagonist?
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Originally posted by sluggish
Will Ice again be the antagonist?
You pet-named this guy 'Ice'? That's pretty ****ed up.
(http://dept.lamar.edu/cofac/spinfest/seminars/speakers_2005/speaker_photos/atherton.jpg)
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Originally posted by Neubob
You pet-named this guy 'Ice'? That's pretty ****ed up.
(http://dept.lamar.edu/cofac/spinfest/seminars/speakers_2005/speaker_photos/atherton.jpg)
I was talking about this genius-
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/skilless/dvd_genious.jpg)
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And I was talking about Hathaway(Atherton), the antagonist.
Nevermind Sluggish. Joke failed.
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Originally posted by sluggish
I was talking about this genius-
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/skilless/dvd_genious.jpg)
Worst. Photoshop. Ever.
Worse even than Harrison Ford on the cover of Air Force One.
That is not Val Kilmer. It is not human.
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Originally posted by Neubob
Everything big, impressive and practical starts small, overpriced and novel, as Chairboy said... $3k or not, when something the size of a pen can burn through something from across the room, I start imagining what they'll do in another 5-10 years.
I agree, and I'll check back in another 5-10 years.
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Originally posted by Neubob
And I was talking about Hathaway(Atherton), the antagonist.
Nevermind Sluggish. Joke failed.
And yet again... Did you hear the swooshing sound?
Val Kilmer, who played the antagonist in "Top Gun," whose character's name was...
awe never mind...
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Originally posted by sluggish
And yet again... Did you hear the swooshing sound?
Val Kilmer, who played the antagonist in "Top Gun," whose character's name was...
awe never mind...
Ice was never the antagonist. Top Gun was a classic story of Man Verses Self. Maverick was his own worst enemy. This is proven in the end, when, after confronting his own demons, Ice and Maverick end up bonafide butt-buddies.
Hathaway, however, was an antagonist in the truest sense of the word. And, given the context of the conversation and a very memorable scene involving Ice (frozen water) in Real Genius, where Val screams 'I'm melting', the confusion surrounding the word 'Ice' is understandable.
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reminds me of an old sci fi book that had soldiers with microwave laser rifles (masers) powered by a backpack that was in itself a biological power reactor (created by splicing dna from creatures and bacteria that generated electrical currents).
the whole concept was illogical but the battles were fun.
now, about a decade later, seeing all the advances, it makes one wonder.
BTW, didnt nikola tesla say that he had invented some sort of death ray before his death?
That guy did amazing stuff in his life, wouldnt count him out of the race even if he's dead.
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BWHAHAHAHAHAHA One joke comment with a reference to pop culture relevant to the technology at hand, and the thread breaks down into a semantic study of the intentions of the character studies in 2 totally different and self indulgent 1980's movies that happen to star an actor not even mentioned in the original post by myself!
:D :p you guys rock :rofl
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Excellent perspective about disruptive technology, Chairboy. Thanks.