--- Day changed Mon Jul 07 2008 02:53 -!- willPow3r [n=will@cpe-66-75-6-181.san.res.rr.com] has joined #hplusroadmap 03:56 < kanzure> http://www.google.com/search?q=printing+on+plastic+films 03:58 -!- nsh [n=nsh@eduroam-80.uta.fi] has joined #hplusroadmap 05:25 -!- jm|earth [n=jm@p57B9CD8D.dip.t-dialin.net] has joined #hplusroadmap 12:30 -!- nsh [n=nsh@eduroam-80.uta.fi] has quit ["it rhymes if you're from the 17th century"] 13:07 -!- nsh [n=nsh@87-94-146-186.tampere.customers.dnainternet.fi] has joined #hplusroadmap 15:11 -!- Splicer [n=p@h133n2c1o261.bredband.skanova.com] has joined #hplusroadmap 16:14 < kanzure> Hm. 16:14 < kanzure> I have acquired another box. 16:15 < kanzure> And a small, 15" monitor. 16:15 < kanzure> A really nice set of keys too. 16:18 -!- Phreedom_ [n=freedom@195.216.211.159] has quit [Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)] 16:28 < kanzure> Grr. 16:28 < kanzure> IRC needs to have message confirmation. 16:28 < kanzure> http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/gallery_browse.asp?ID=168&date=desc&nummon=true&mon=desc <-- Haha. Make it a research project, and the university will fund you, right? :) 16:31 -!- Phreedom_ [n=freedom@195.216.211.159] has joined #hplusroadmap 16:42 < kanzure> http://larry-the-sizzlemaster.blogspot.com/2007/08/i-first-met-larry.html 16:42 < kanzure> from http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/gallery_browse.asp?ID=142&date=desc&nummon=true&mon=desc 18:02 -!- fenn [n=pz@adsl-76-251-82-130.dsl.bltnin.sbcglobal.net] has joined #hplusroadmap 18:02 -!- Topic for #hplusroadmap: Semi-intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXKbzbeipmI http://diybio.org/ http://openwetware.org/ | diy bio toolkit: http://biohack.sf.net/ | Automated societal knowledge (put it to work): http://heybryan.org/exp.html | Channel wiki: http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/ | F/OSS perspectives on Kurzweil: http://heybryan.org/fernhout/ 18:02 -!- Topic set by kanzure [] [Sat Jul 5 23:09:51 2008] 18:02 [Users #hplusroadmap] 18:02 [ fenn ] [ jm|earth] [ Overand ] [ procto ] [ willPow3r] 18:02 [ freer] [ kanzure ] [ Phreedom_] [ Splicer] [ ybit ] 18:02 -!- Irssi: #hplusroadmap: Total of 10 nicks [0 ops, 0 halfops, 0 voices, 10 normal] 18:03 -!- Channel #hplusroadmap created Sat Mar 22 15:44:12 2008 18:03 -!- Irssi: Join to #hplusroadmap was synced in 34 secs 18:47 < kanzure> hm 18:47 < kanzure> :) 18:47 < kanzure> freecycle is awesome 19:06 < kanzure> Heh heh. 19:06 < kanzure> I just got off the phone with a guy way the hell up north in Texas who runs his own 'esoteric engineering research laboratory' 19:06 < fenn> what does he research? 19:06 < kanzure> uh, it seems to be everything 19:07 < kanzure> we spent an hour talking beowulfs, ramjets, non object-oriented approaches to physics, vw buses, transmissions, rectifiers, etc. 19:09 < kanzure> his shop is apparently something of a cross between a data center, forge/foundry, and scrap equipment wired up doing interesting things 19:09 * fenn looks around.. yep sounds familiar 19:10 < kanzure> diesel alternatives that he has (almost) running in diesel engines 19:10 < kanzure> since apparently he doesn't want to pay for fuel 19:10 < kanzure> he was claiming (1) it's a common household material, (2) a "truck load" would provide a gallon of the finished extract, and (3) it could run in a diesel engine 19:10 < kanzure> that's a bit too little to go looking for what it is that he's been working with 19:11 < fenn> with thermal decomposition technology, that could be anything 19:12 < kanzure> so it's nice to see some local esoteric individuals that might have a clue (or at least a lot of junk)O 19:12 < kanzure> I've been running around the area picking up free stuff on doorsteps from freecycle 19:12 < kanzure> so I have a few more boxes and screens now 19:12 < kanzure> for integration I've been looking at xrandr, xinerama, TwinView, xdmx, synergy, MultiMon, UltraMon, MultiSeat 19:12 < kanzure> it all sucks as far as I can tell, 19:12 < kanzure> xinerama has died 19:13 < kanzure> xrandr isn't functional yet 19:13 < kanzure> xdmx isn't enough 19:13 < kanzure> or something 19:13 < fenn> the whole X project sorta exploded due to politics 19:13 < kanzure> each one has those minor peculiarities that prevent them from actually functioning 19:13 < kanzure> oh? 19:14 < fenn> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization 19:14 < fenn> basically, you put trash in a pressure cooker for a half hour 19:16 < kanzure> uhm, so what the hell am I going to do with these monitors 19:16 < kanzure> I guess I could just install Windows 98 and go from there 19:16 < kanzure> since I recall Windows having good multimonitor support 19:17 < fenn> seriously they don't work? i thought for sure this is the sort of thing linux would excel at 19:19 < kanzure> well 19:19 < kanzure> really this is sort of combined experience plus some reading around and seeing the technical problems that others are facing 19:19 < fenn> what do you mean by "combined experience"? 19:20 < kanzure> well, I've fiddled around with xrandr, xinerama and some other stuff before 19:20 < kanzure> and nothing productive ever came out of it 19:21 < kanzure> by luck I have xrandr working at the moment, but it's really not two separate desktops and instead it's just one large continuous screen that spreads over to the other monitor 19:21 < kanzure> (I'm on the laptop) 19:22 < kanzure> I'm willing to fiddle some more, but I'm also worried about the hardware implementation details 19:22 < kanzure> for instance, should I even bother buying three more dualhead video cards? 19:22 < kanzure> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130085 19:22 < kanzure> EVGA 256-P2-N751-TR GeForce 8600 GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 19:22 < fenn> you can get separate screens by tiling them in a diagonal manner? 19:22 < kanzure> huh? 19:22 < kanzure> wikipedia? 19:23 < fenn> so they only overlap in the corners (not touching at all really) 19:23 < kanzure> i gues 19:23 < kanzure> *guess 19:24 < fenn> your monitors accept dvi? 19:24 < kanzure> "Despite these problems, Xinerama offers two overwhelming advantages over separate X screens (see next section). First, you can move windows between Xinerama screens. Second, a single application can have windows open on the different Xinerama screens at the same time." 19:24 < kanzure> no 19:24 < kanzure> these are all d-sub beasts 19:24 < fenn> then dont get a dvi-only card :P 19:24 < kanzure> comes with a dvi-to-dsub adapter 19:25 < fenn> hmm 19:25 < kanzure> and I have a few spares 19:25 < kanzure> how much video memory do I possibly need 19:25 < kanzure> really I only need one "strong/workhorse" card 19:25 < kanzure> and then a bunch of other small 64 MB cards or something 19:25 < kanzure> for the extra screens and displays 19:25 < kanzure> right? 19:25 < fenn> i have no idea 19:26 < kanzure> and then just hope I can force all 'serious' rendering to the workhorse 19:26 < kanzure> but how the hell do I specify this in my googlings 19:26 < fenn> video cards are so unscientific and anecdotal it's impossible to say anything really 19:26 < kanzure> sucks 19:26 < kanzure> I was looking into the possibility of a PCI extender 19:26 < kanzure> of something that plugs into a PCI slot and gives you another 13 PCI slots 19:26 < kanzure> then just load up with some simple cards 19:27 < fenn> with too many slow pci cards you can have bus contention 19:28 < kanzure> grumble grumble 19:28 < kanzure> what if I just use multiple boxes 19:28 < kanzure> I have enough of these things laying around, it's not a big deal 19:29 < kanzure> but I'd like to be able to pretend on the software end of things that it's all the same system 19:29 < fenn> ssh -CX :P 19:29 < fenn> there must be some vnc hack to do just that 19:29 < kanzure> but then what about that local hdd? 19:29 < fenn> what about it? 19:30 < kanzure> I don't want to have to ssh to access that 19:30 < kanzure> I want it mounted in /mnt/blah on all systems 19:30 < kanzure> or better yet, a sector spanning across multiple physical hdd units 19:30 < kanzure> hrm, a /mnt/ entry is probably good enough 19:30 < fenn> er. ssh -X runs te proces on the remote system and displays it on the local box 19:30 < fenn> so it really is running on one system 19:32 < kanzure> guess I'd have to script up the bootup scripts? 19:32 < kanzure> I don't want to have to manually type out commands each time I want to move a window to a different screen 19:32 < kanzure> sucks 19:34 < kanzure> http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/07/166253 19:37 < kanzure> meh 19:37 < kanzure> but apparently Tony knows Nicole Yankelovich. 19:39 < kanzure> http://io9.com/5022316/mad-science-contest-build-a-lifeform-and-well-send-you-to-hong-kong-or-give-you-1000 19:43 < kanzure> meh, if I enter I'll win 19:43 < kanzure> what's the fun in that? 19:44 < kanzure> specifically just throw in the writozyme to bacteria ("UnColi") 19:44 < kanzure> and then just do some fancy illustrations 19:47 < kanzure> need a way to make it "cute" for it to win 19:47 < fenn> "plausibility" bah 19:47 < kanzure> writozyme is plausible :) 19:48 < fenn> if it doesnt exist, it doesnt exist 19:48 < kanzure> hah 19:48 < kanzure> yes, this is a good point 19:48 < fenn> 'please submit all entries in the form of a lifeform' 19:48 < fenn> is what i would put in the rules 19:48 < kanzure> sperm in an envelope 19:48 < fenn> ew 19:48 < kanzure> endlessly amusing 19:49 < fenn> i'm not sure sperm qualifies 19:49 < kanzure> what would make a writozyme-organism interesting 19:49 < kanzure> besides the obvious uses 19:49 < kanzure> it's clear that you will not win just because you're technically righty 19:49 < kanzure> *right 19:50 < kanzure> "diagnostics" or "self-programming" or "programming bacteria without paying a cent" isn't "cute" 19:50 < kanzure> but maybe growing color displays is ? 19:50 < kanzure> not that you're going to get much of a pattern 19:50 < fenn> instant organism-wide genetic immunity 19:50 < kanzure> how is that cute 19:50 < fenn> uh, sorry, what's cute in the context of bacterial colonies? 19:51 < fenn> i have no precedent 19:51 < kanzure> " 19:51 < kanzure> There are two categories in the contest, each with their own prize. The important thing to remember is that this contest is about creating cool new lifeforms that are also, in some way, entertaining. So each entry will be judged for plausibility (i.e. whether it is scientifically justifiable), creativity, usefulness, and entertainment value." 19:51 < kanzure> creativity, usefulness, and entertainment value 19:51 < kanzure> I suspect the emphasis is on entertainment value 19:51 < kanzure> bacteria that pragmatically produce MDMA 19:51 < kanzure> problem solved? 19:52 < fenn> i think that's usefulness not entertainment value 19:52 < fenn> bacteria that speek esperanto 19:53 < fenn> bacteria that download porn into your brain 19:53 < kanzure> bacterial chorus? 19:53 < kanzure> how the hell do you make programming 'of entertaining value' anyway 19:53 < kanzure> http://scratch.mit.edu/ is all that I can think of really 19:53 < kanzure> game programming and such 19:53 < fenn> its not programming, its an art contest 19:54 < kanzure> but the writozyme is about writing 19:54 < fenn> any programming of 'entertainment value' is only of entertainment value to extreme nerds and intellectuals 19:54 < kanzure> brainfuck 19:54 < fenn> therefore, not going to be a winner in a mass media contest 19:54 < fenn> kanzure: if it weren't named brainfuck it wouldnt be funny 19:55 < kanzure> I thought the entertainment value was the ridiculousness of the language and what's involved in actually using it 19:55 < kanzure> hm, what's entertaining anyway? 19:55 < fenn> lolcat language is more genuinely entertaining 19:56 < kanzure> hm 19:56 < fenn> http://lolcode.com/examples 19:57 < kanzure> holy shit 19:58 -!- jm|earth [n=jm@p57B9CD8D.dip.t-dialin.net] has quit [Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)] 19:58 < kanzure> but what keeps people entertained 19:58 < kanzure> reading lolcats isn't enough really 19:58 < fenn> you might think that... :( 19:59 < fenn> icanhascheesburger.com proves otherwise 19:59 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/camera/internet/ I've been down that path before 19:59 < fenn> or whatever the url is 20:00 < kanzure> I think there's a z somewhere in there 20:01 < fenn> icanhascheezburger.com 20:03 < kanzure> "Hey kids! What could be more fun than curing your dad's diabetes?" 20:03 < kanzure> hm 20:03 < kanzure> oh 20:03 < kanzure> here's an idea 20:04 < kanzure> put them inside of a contact lense 20:04 < kanzure> a thin layer of reprogrammable biological photonic filters 20:04 < kanzure> have it secrete certain proteins, and certain wavelengths of light are less likely to come through, for instance 20:06 < kanzure> is that fun? 20:06 < fenn> only if it shows porn 20:07 < fenn> cat halfbakery/*bio* > contest.entry 20:07 < kanzure> heh 20:08 < kanzure> okay, so what the hell is entertaining about bacteria anyway 20:08 < kanzure> anything that will be done with them will be over a long period of time 20:08 < kanzure> for instance, the tic-tac-toe ribozyme system 20:08 < kanzure> took four hours to complete a single move or the game, one of the two 20:08 < kanzure> yes, about 30 minutes per move 20:09 < fenn> that's just because your bio-logic sucks 20:09 < kanzure> nobody has the sustained attention for that to be considered entertainment 20:09 < kanzure> but consider anything else done with biology though 20:09 < kanzure> what the hell is going to be fast enough to be 'fun' 20:09 < kanzure> and 'entertaining' ? 20:09 < fenn> you're missing the point 20:09 < fenn> the contest _entry_ is supposed to be entertaining 20:10 < kanzure> presentation style? 20:12 < kanzure> then it'll be in the form of a mad scientist's monologue for world domination with reprogrammable bacteria 20:12 < kanzure> easy enough 20:12 < kanzure> just turn it into a creative writing exercise 20:12 < kanzure> with inlets/excerpts that explain the actual technical implementation details 20:12 < fenn> really they should be doing this in slashdot style 20:12 < fenn> just post a slashdot article calling for entries :) 20:16 < fenn> i find this interesting for some reason (the general princple of it, not necessarily flavored meats) http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/_22Bio-seasoned_22_20meats#1078074000 20:17 < fenn> unfortunately GMO is not fashionable today 20:52 < kanzure> halfbakery is not because things are halfbaked, but because things don't die 20:52 < kanzure> reprap is halfbakery 20:52 < kanzure> or *halfbaked 20:54 < kanzure> http://industrycommunity.com/ee/ee-2-next2/messages/301.html monitor schematics on CD ? 20:54 < kanzure> I bet it's just the stuff in the manuals, not anything important 20:56 < kanzure> http://www.industrycommunity.com/myforum/james_whitehouse_next1/index.html 20:56 < kanzure> "$69 DOS controller" 20:56 < kanzure> wtf 20:57 < kanzure> ah, an embedded 21:01 < kanzure> http://machinetools.com/MT/machines/index.tmpl?page=index_country&countryID=CT9984321042268 21:02 < kanzure> potentially useful ontology? 21:02 * kanzure is distracted, obviously 21:08 < kanzure> http://www.altmanmachinery.com/photo.php?stockNumber=7196 <-- wtf? 21:11 < fenn> no, many of those groups overlap 21:12 < fenn> and further, i'd say it's not useful because it's not functionally descriptive 21:13 < fenn> well, not all of the categories 21:13 < kanzure> hrm 21:13 < kanzure> we need a warehouse 21:13 < kanzure> I hear there's some cheap stuff in the Bay Area because of a recently closed military operation 21:14 < fenn> the big dirty thing is a hydraulic press, probably used for punching shapes out of sheet metal 21:15 < fenn> i dont want a warehouse.. part of why i'm interested in hexapods is that they dont require massive investment in infrastructure because of the mass and un-disassemblability 21:15 < fenn> so you can transport without a flatbed trailer 21:15 < fenn> and dont need a warehouse to store 21:16 < fenn> 90% of used machinery cost is shipping 21:17 < fenn> look at http://www.hgrindustrialsurplus.com/ for examples of inexpensive yet hard to ship machinery 21:18 < kanzure> the problem is not knowing what to do -- having examples of functional machinery that does Stuff means you get to have parts to play with to make those them there hexapodders 21:18 < fenn> seems to be, the bigger it is the less it costs 21:18 < kanzure> eh? 21:18 < fenn> for milling machines at least 21:19 * fenn mumbles about bootstrapping 21:20 < kanzure> see 21:20 < kanzure> :) 21:20 < kanzure> speaking of that 21:20 < kanzure> I was thinking last night (or really this morning) about some rebootstrapping my digital storage 21:20 < kanzure> photography development is practiced by many people in their own homes 21:21 < kanzure> and optical recording of data should be feasible 21:21 < fenn> so is whittling, embroidery, and calligraphy? 21:21 < fenn> i dont see the connection to bootstrapping 21:21 < kanzure> digital storage without building a giant hdd fabber 21:21 < kanzure> well, analog storage really 21:21 < fenn> microfilm can be digital 21:22 < fenn> but how big is a gigabyte on microfilm 21:22 < kanzure> that's just a space issue -- I'm more worried about read/write and if those actions are possible with homebrew equipment 21:22 < kanzure> especially for digital 21:22 < fenn> define homebrew 21:22 < kanzure> with analog it's obvious we have VCRs that read/write 21:22 < kanzure> well, "not a giant hdd fabber" 21:22 < kanzure> or "not a giant flash mem fabber" 21:22 < fenn> err 21:22 < fenn> can we use transistors? 21:23 < kanzure> giant as in 'multi million dollar fab' 21:23 < kanzure> hm 21:23 < fenn> photodiodes? 21:23 < kanzure> I'd prefer not 21:23 < kanzure> bleh 21:23 < kanzure> hm 21:23 < kanzure> we'd have to have photodiodes, wouldn't we? 21:23 < fenn> i guess you can make a geiger-counter-ish light sensitive tube 21:23 < fenn> cant remember the name now 21:24 < kanzure> photoamplifier? 21:24 < kanzure> light source => project through the film => photoamplifier => typical acoustic equipment (not digital signal processing) 21:27 < fenn> aha - photomultiplier tube 21:27 < kanzure> erm 21:28 < fenn> yes they are expensive to buy but they look simple to construct 21:28 < kanzure> really you just need a way to write, and a way to read, so why not a printer, and why not a flatbed feeder scanner? 21:28 < fenn> ffs man you just said homebrew 21:28 < fenn> scanner != homebrew 21:29 < fenn> why not a hard disk! 21:29 < kanzure> hm 21:29 < kanzure> scanner just needs optical input really, right? 21:29 < kanzure> that's the difficult issue, no? 21:30 < fenn> why not punch cards? 21:30 < fenn> engraved stone tablets 21:30 < kanzure> punch cards work 21:30 < kanzure> I'd stay away from stone tablets 21:30 < kanzure> ah, 21:30 < fenn> 1) define the problem 2) solve the problem 21:30 < kanzure> because punch cards aren't reusable? 21:30 < kanzure> rewritable 21:30 < fenn> well, neither are hard drives (for sufficiently high number of rewrites) 21:31 < fenn> you can "erase" a stone tablet many times 21:31 < kanzure> are oil-water-oil-water stacked emulsions possible? 21:31 < kanzure> just use dyes and shine laser through it 21:32 < fenn> i think that's how CD-R's work 21:32 < kanzure> then have a stack of straws (one straw is a single stack) 21:32 < kanzure> so maybe have 20 straws going in parallel 21:32 < kanzure> and you suddenly have liquid data storage at astonishingly low speeds 21:32 < fenn> amazing 21:32 < fenn> you can also use bubbles 21:33 < kanzure> really? 21:33 < kanzure> oh 21:33 < kanzure> right 21:33 < kanzure> blowing bubbles in a straw 21:33 < fenn> see manu prakash's research on bubble computers 21:33 < kanzure> okay, so the requirements 21:33 < kanzure> read/write machinery is allowed to be 'somewhat' difficult 21:34 < kanzure> the media on which the data is stored must be easily 'synthesized' or constructed from 'everyday materials' 21:34 < kanzure> (DNA doesn't count) 21:34 < kanzure> must be higher density than punch cards / paper-hole-punching 21:34 < kanzure> and maybe also faster :) 21:35 < kanzure> paper is a good medium though because of the easy construction routine 21:36 < kanzure> imagine a long, small strip of paper with single-file tiny holes being fed into an electrical circuit (either completes/shorts the circuit) 21:38 < fenn> yes punch tapes are more efficient than cards, but harder to manipulate without a computer 21:43 < kanzure> so? 21:44 < fenn> that's why they were used 21:44 < fenn> presumably whatever situation that makes use of homebrew data storage and retrieval will have similar constraints 21:45 < kanzure> sure 21:45 < kanzure> btw, the punch tape could just be normal tape, and more appropriately, just paper, and a very sharp pointy stick to write holes 21:47 < kanzure> I wonder how fast we could get it 21:47 < kanzure> blargh, disconnect 21:47 < kanzure> anyway, 21:47 < kanzure> 50k rpm on a centrifuge => 50k rpm on a CD if necessary, 21:47 < fenn> cd's explode at 10krpm 21:47 < kanzure> or a certain holes per minute with paper backup? 21:47 < kanzure> huh 21:47 < kanzure> that sucks 21:48 < fenn> that's why 52x is the fastest you can buy 21:48 < fenn> what about AFM stuff 21:49 < fenn> "stone tablets" :) 21:49 < fenn> now i cant remember the name of the link i posted in here 21:50 < kanzure> http://www.spmtips.com/bibliography/data_storage/ 21:51 < kanzure> http://web.archive.org/web/20070313210126/http://www.spmtips.com/bibliography/data_storage/ 21:52 < fenn> ah yes, "nanochip plans to make MEMS cantilever arrays to store 100GB on a chip by 2010" 21:52 < fenn> their website sucks though, no information 21:53 < kanzure> 'magnetic force microscopy' 21:54 < kanzure> Magnetization reversal processes in perpendicular anisotropy thin films observed with magnetic force microscopy 21:54 < kanzure> J. Schmidt, E. Dan Dahlberg, C. Merton, S. Foss, G. Skidmore 21:54 < kanzure> Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, 190 (1998), 1-2, 81-88 21:55 < kanzure> perpendicular magnetic recording? 21:55 < kanzure> what difference does it make, the orientation? 21:55 < fenn> it's more compact, like punching holes in the paper instead of varying the thickness of the paper 21:56 < kanzure> " It is turned out, that application of the AFM is not limited by using it only as a surface characterization technique. Principles of scanning probe microscopy themselves are of growing importance in respect to their possible use for information storage. A cursory glance to the design of read/write system in magnetic hard disk is enough to notice the substantial resemblance with the system of data acquisition in scanning pro 21:56 < kanzure> heh 21:56 < kanzure> ' Bennewitz et al. [1354] discuss the limits of pushing storage density by means of STM to the atomic scale at room temperatures. It was tentatively shown that the smallest possible bit can be coded with a single silicon atom, positioned at lattice sites along self-assembled tracks with a pitch of five atom rows. These tracks were obtained by depositing 0.4 monolayers of gold onto a Si(111) surface at 700° C with a post-anneal 21:56 < fenn> i wonder why it's taken so long to get to the point where people are thinking about afm for data storage 21:58 < kanzure> 'Estimated speed by means of one probe would be of 6·106 points/sec, which is respectable but still slower than today's hard disks. The future speed enhancement could be achieved in application of parallelism to such systems.' 21:58 < kanzure> AFM was only 1986 / Smalley et al. 21:58 < kanzure> 22 years is long enough 21:59 < fenn> well, it doesnt have to be AFM even, just microminiaturized punch cards 21:59 < fenn> it all leads to the same place eventually 21:59 < kanzure> the /dev/null ? 21:59 < fenn> the omega point, silly! 22:00 < kanzure> what's a good writable medium for AFM? Actually, STM might be a better idea -- shoot some electrons at 'em. 22:00 < fenn> uh, rhodopsin? 22:01 < fenn> some kind of natural flip-flop molecule would be preferable to just throwing a bunch of atoms on a surface 22:01 < fenn> a self assembled monolayer of them 22:01 < fenn> gosh i almost sound like i know what i'm talking about 22:01 < kanzure> http://www.cem.msu.edu/~cem181h/projects/96/memory/index.html bacteriorhodoopsin memory 22:01 < fenn> 404 22:02 < kanzure> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriorhodopsin 22:02 < kanzure> 'Protein-coated disc - theoretical data storage capacity of 50 terabytes' 22:02 < kanzure> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein-coated_disc 22:04 < kanzure> http://web.archive.org/web/20070822031912/http://www.cem.msu.edu/~cem181h/projects/96/memory/index.html 22:04 < kanzure> this is photon based, not electron 22:04 < kanzure> but there are some electron pumps, IIRC 22:05 < kanzure> 'Among the most promising of the new alternatives are photopolymer-based devices, holographic optical memory storage devices, and protein-based optical memory storage using rhodopsin , photosynthetic reaction centers, cytochrome c, photosystems I and II, phycobiliproteins, and phytochrome. This website focuses mainly on protein-based optical memory storage using the photosensitive protein bacteriorhodopsin with the two-photon meth 22:05 < kanzure> 'This website focuses mainly on protein-based optical memory storage using the photosensitive protein bacteriorhodopsin with the two-photon method of exciting the molecules, but briefly describes what is involved in the other two. Bacteriorhodopsin is a light-harvesting protein from bacteria that live in salt marshes that has shown some promise as a feasible optical data storage. The current work is to hybridize this biological 22:05 < fenn> yes but why can't you modulate the tip at the proper frequency? 22:05 < kanzure> what? 22:05 < kanzure> why can't you? 22:05 < kanzure> oh 22:05 < kanzure> shoot photons from the tip? 22:05 < fenn> essentially 22:06 < fenn> anyway, not what i meant 22:06 < fenn> rhodopsin is some protein, i was thinking of retinol 22:06 < fenn> in particular how it flip-flops between states 22:07 < fenn> gah all i get is cosmetics and sandals 22:07 < kanzure> welcome to the web? 22:08 < fenn> anyway, ever play with a barrette? it flip-flops between two states with mechanical pressure, due to its physical structure and the elasticity inherent in its materials 22:10 < fenn> so you have an array of these things sticking up, and your afm tip comes along down the row flipping them left or right 22:10 < kanzure> deja vu 22:10 < kanzure> we've been here before 22:11 < fenn> like bootstrapping your computer through the front panel switches 22:11 < kanzure> I would feel much better about an photoelectrical effect 22:11 < kanzure> or just an electrical effect 22:11 < kanzure> mechanics seems iffy :-/ 22:11 < fenn> its molecular conformational changes actually 22:11 < fenn> seems to work for biology 22:11 < kanzure> how do you make them 22:12 < kanzure> how do you get them sticking up 22:12 < kanzure> and how do you paste em to the board? 22:12 < fenn> 1) ask an organic chemist 2) self assembled monolayers and 3) they stick on their own 22:14 < fenn> this way all the high tech chip-fab mems stuff is in the cantilever array 22:14 < kanzure> oh, it's a protein? 22:14 < kanzure> wikipedia is telling me it might be an amino acid 22:14 < kanzure> the retinol 22:14 < kanzure> uh, and if it's in cosmetics 22:14 < fenn> so you have several orders of magnitude higher data density than a mems flip-flop array 22:14 < kanzure> then we are in luck 22:14 < kanzure> there's a lot of cheap cosmetic products out there 22:14 < kanzure> for testing 22:14 < kanzure> then we can move to bioreactors 22:15 < fenn> retinol is an organic molecule like a fatty acid with some stuff on the end 22:15 < kanzure> doesn't sound frightening 22:16 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/AFM 22:16 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/AFM_nanolithography 22:16 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/instrumentation/instru.html 22:16 < kanzure> http://www.biophysik.physik.uni-muenchen.de/PlasticAFM/ 22:17 < fenn> *wank* 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.geocities.com/spm_stm/Project_overview.html 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/07/how_to_build_a_simple_scanning.html 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.bsc.ustc.edu.cn/~jlyang/research/STMWebPage.html 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.stanford.edu/group/quate_group/Litho/LithoPages/ExposureofResist/Hybrid.html 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.bsc.ustc.edu.cn/~jlyang/research/STMWebPage.html 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.lugoj.com/NanotechSTMArticles/HomeBrewSTMs.html 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.e-basteln.de/index_o.htm 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.advancedphysics.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6697 22:17 < kanzure> http://stm2.nrl.navy.mil/how-afm/how-afm.html 22:17 < fenn> please stop 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.lugoj.com/NanotechSTMArticles/HomeBrewSTMs.html 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/07/how_to_build_a_simple_scanning.html 22:17 < kanzure> http://www.geocities.com/spm_stm/ 22:17 < kanzure> bwahahah 22:17 < kanzure> that's all 22:17 < kanzure> my point is that we have the STM/AFM down well enough 22:17 < fenn> no, you dont have the automation for high speed read and write 22:18 < kanzure> *cough* 22:18 < fenn> how fast can one tip read? really 22:18 < kanzure> where the hell is percent_ 22:18 < fenn> it takes like a minute to get a decent picture 22:18 < kanzure> oh dratz 22:18 < kanzure> we were here a few months ago when we were on about piezo tubes 22:19 < kanzure> http://members.misty.com/don/pzfix.html http://www.colomar.com/Shavano/mini_piezo_tweeter.html 22:19 < kanzure> piezo electric film? http://www.imagesco.com/catalog/sensors/film.html 22:19 < kanzure> tubes: http://www.chem.pacificu.edu/Johnson/JohnsonResearch/STM/PIEZO.HTM 22:19 < kanzure> anyway 22:20 < kanzure> we don't need microscopic writing ability 22:20 < kanzure> let's do a velocity of a few mm/sec 22:20 < kanzure> and do very large writing patches 22:20 < kanzure> i.e., not "one bit per atom" but "one bit per mm^2" 22:20 < kanzure> for starters. 22:20 < kanzure> it's an ester reaction http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Vitamin-A-Synthese.png 22:24 < kanzure> what would we be scanning for? 22:24 < kanzure> average roughness? 22:24 < kanzure> of the region for one bit? 22:24 < kanzure> -? 22:25 * fenn is bored with this conversation 22:25 < kanzure> really? 22:26 < kanzure> there was a mechanical state 22:26 < kanzure> and this has to be detected somehow 22:26 < kanzure> it was left/right, you mentioned 22:26 < kanzure> at high speeds this would probably look like a grating direction 22:26 < fenn> you scan a row, and if the flip flop is there it shows up as a force on the tip 22:27 < kanzure> how do you determine state? 22:27 < fenn> if it's there or not 22:27 < kanzure> so you write by placing a retinol molecule? 22:27 < fenn> they're in a regular array so you can assume that there is a flip flop in every position 22:27 < fenn> no, forget about retinol 22:28 < fenn> think light switches 22:28 < fenn> you dont turn on a light switch by placing a light switch on the wall 22:29 < kanzure> you complete a circuit? 22:29 < fenn> you move the switch 22:29 < fenn> then you can see that the switch is either up or down 22:29 < kanzure> so there's, what, a few angstroms the molecule moves? 22:30 < fenn> um, i can never remember bond lengths and so forth 22:30 < fenn> more like 10-20 angstroms 22:31 < fenn> but it's an engineering question really 22:31 < fenn> how big do you want it to be 22:32 < kanzure> that wouldn't be an issue if we had the nm-range actuators 22:32 < kanzure> but we don't 22:32 < kanzure> so we need something bigger, something where we can scan a few micrometers at a time 22:32 < fenn> i'm sure there are a zillion and one ways to encode information with an AFM tip 22:32 < kanzure> at that speed I sincerely doubt you can measure angstrom-scale differences 22:33 < fenn> when you say 'scan a few micrometers' does that mean the whole image is a few micrometers across or each "pixel" is a few micrometers? 22:34 < kanzure> the bit is a few micrometers^2 22:34 < kanzure> until we can get more precise actuators 22:35 < fenn> well, that's still ~1Mbit/mm^2 22:35 < fenn> micrometers are huge though man 22:36 < fenn> you can do that with an optical microscope 22:37 < fenn> http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/GeetikaKumar.shtml 22:38 < kanzure> how would the optical microscope write? 22:38 < kanzure> Litho? 22:38 < fenn> you know all the hype about blu-ray etc is because of the diffraction limit varies with wavelength 22:40 < fenn> i'm not sure how dvd's are pressed in a factory but dvd-r's use a photosensitive dye 22:40 < fenn> and cd's are just impressions laser etched into a glass plate that gets stamped into plastic 22:42 < kanzure> photosensitive dye sounds like etchants 22:42 < fenn> no, i mean the dye changes color when hit by a laser pulse of enough power 23:33 < kanzure> http://www.provincia.va.it/preziosita/ukvarese/pers/ramelli.htm 23:45 -!- Phreedom_ [n=freedom@195.216.211.159] has quit [Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)] 23:57 < fenn> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookwheel 23:58 < fenn> has a picture at least