Comandante

Never heard of LaserQuest. Paintball is a nice try but it is much more expensive to play it and there is no possibility of transforming one kind of terrain into another. Furthermore the weapons are mostly unrealistic and the atmosphere cannot be recreated into whatever you want it to be. The bottom line is that in paintball everything is very limited. Think of what I've described as a possibility to "enter" almost any 1st person computer game and play it in person. The suit is needed so that your position in space is exactly known because computer draws an image of you in real-time and sends that image to everyone else 'playing the game'. That way people can aim for you properly, whether you lay down, crouch, crawl, jump or lean behind obstacles. It is basically a real-video image of you inside the video game. Download and watch this video to see what I mean, it shows people dancing with motion lab suit and then real-time animation of them dancing: http://www.deakin.edu.au/motionlab/images/Motion-capture.mov

As a keen gamer I particularly enjoy games which concentrate a lot on environmental conditions of the surroundings, i.e., snow in winter, details of snowflakes or ice on the roofs etc, and of course scientific accuracy ... but after a while it all ends up inspiring me to "want more". PC games need to escalate to a new level of realism. A nice attempt has been made by Crytek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crysis) but even that is not enough. The majority of gaming is still on our computer screens and TV's. Virtual Reality is the future by all means. Even though it is still in its infancy I can't wait for it to advance for I'll be the first customer on any major VR Gaming event. I would pay A LOT of money for an opportunity to be placed into VR World set in World War II. As far as I'm informed the best they've come up with so far are "VR Goggles" and "VR Gloves" which to me sounds a bit absurd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality). It's a start nevertheless, an opening. To get to the point though, I've asked myself what would I do about it if I had enough time and money to make a move. I came up with the following idea, and it involves only concepts that are theoretically viable in our present time - in other words - possible to develop. My idea consists of 1- “player setup” – i.e., everything necessary for the player to engage in VR activities, and 2-“terrain setup” – i.e., everything necessary to create realistic VR environment. As for 1, I would make an advance from the “VR Glove” to the VR Suit much like the one used in motion labs (example: http://www.deakin.edu.au/motionlab/index2.php ). It would be equipped with wireless sensors and other (to be determined) gadgets. A player would also need some kind of Goggles but something that looks A BIT more practical than what you can see on Wikipedia. Basically the majority of “player setup” will heavily rely on software and some hardware, while the “terrain setup” will heavily rely on hardware and a bit of software. For the purpose of the explanation let me assume we are making World War II simulation for example, in a particular town. And this is the fun part, the ‘entire’ town would be built from cheap plastics in a hall or some other large space. Every piece of hard material in the hall would be connected to a 3D framework encircling the “terrain” (I would guess based on electromagnetics by having materials contain metals that can be detected by the magnetic field, or some kind of radar or other sensory device (like motion lab suit)), and by hard material I refer to the ground, elevated areas, walls, trees or vehicles and for example, weapons (speaking of which, for the purpose of it being more realistic, weapons would be built from heavier materials to the specifications). Now, every weapon, vehicle or any other “movable” object in that hall would have motion sensors (or metals for detection, whichever proves to be more accurate way of doing it) attached to the 3D framework and at any point of time the main computer would know exactly where each piece is positioned and how it is rotated on x,y,z axes. This information would be transmitted to each player’s VR Goggles. The computer would also know where each player is within the 3D framework. You can now see where I’m heading with this. Once the entire town is built and computer has precise information of all physical objects, that data can be used and proceeded with much like the way they build computer games today – by attaching textures to each piece as necessary. The textures can be animations from real life or even environment such as that in the game Crysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crysis) since that’s where I’ve seen the nicest graphics to date. Basically the software will put the limits in much the same way it puts the limits in games today. The “end result” of interactions between 3D framework, physical objects and textures attached to those objects, will be sent to each player’s “VR Goggles”. The players will not be able to physically see anything apart from the stuff that gets into the goggles but that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to navigate around the place because the real town that was built out of plastics and other cheap materials will be fully “coated” with textures and animations from real life and any elevation, tree, weapon, vehicle or other player will be visible to each player wearing goggles. (Keyword there is “navigate” – YES, the players would not be strapped into some kind of confined space, they would be fully mobile and “computer gaming” would no longer use chairs!) The players would be able to see each other using those goggles in their preferred uniform. To make that a bit more clear, you would be able to wear anything, not physically but in the actual animation, and you would be able to look down on yourself or in the mirror and see how particular suit suits you! Animated snow could also be possible, the temperature in the hall would be lowered to say 5°C and snow would be computer generated – visible through the goggles. The weapons would probably be bit more expensive to make but they would look real in the animation and you would be able to use those to fire (they would also have high quality speakers each to produce the loud sound of fire and perhaps some kind of magnetic kick back to produce the impulse effect). The entire hall should also be equipped with many dispersed high quality speakers so that environmental sound can be produced, such as that of wind or rain, or thunder, or planes flying above! Or even the roar of tanks coming onto you which you can see in the animation! The players’ voice would be 100% realistic because you would be able to hear other players yelling in the same hall! You would be able to talk with your teammates, handshake or anything else. The trick would be bit harder with the bullet hits, I would suggest using small vibrating or other magnetic or some other movement artifacts on the suit so that when you get shot by someone’s bullet you could actually feel it (not realistic of course but just so you know you’ve been shot!) and see yourself bleeding in the animation. At this point, to everyone around you, you would probably appear as lying down on the ground dead but physically you would be pulled up by some kind of lift and taken out of the game, game over! Of course, you would need to drop your gun first so that others can use it! The possibilities are practically almost endless, once the terrain is set, the suit and goggles along with the main computer are working, all that remains is for game developers to do the rest. I would be very excited to play a game like that so if it’s available anywhere post me a link! (Note: I did not find any info about anything similar whatsoever and I’m unaware of anything of a kind already existing, so if there is let me know!)

I don't know about having two eyes coloured differently but each of my eyes has 2 colors. Basically green on the outside and brown in the inside/middle with center black of course . I have no problems with vision, I used to wear glasses when I was young, which was really unnecessary and part of doctor's conwork to sell expensive glasses.

Ah I see. No probs, will do, thanks.

you can do it online too https://ifmpmsfc11.ifmp.nasa.gov/nasa/JobPosting/45527e1ffa18bf093c47ffc009d27f6f

Nice. I didn't realize it's reusable! In my case winter's getting closer so would it be feasible to dry it in the oven or on a hot plate ? I'll report back when (and if) I find cheap glass tubing Thanks.

Ah I see, I'll try and get some glass tubing, something cheap pops up on ebay every now and then. Ah cool. I was wondering if you also put ice in there Just an idea, would it help if you added ammonium nitrate to that icey water there since that would result in a nice endothermic reaction?

Nice find. Some useful info there. Thanks I need a new camera though

Nice setup. Simple too. The thing is I don't have any glass tubing and it might prove tricky to get some. The place where you say "real condensing" apparently takes place you seem to have a large glass .. is that a glass stand or something... and water in it, with another flask in it used to collect the liquid? That's pretty cool anyhow, can I use a bucket of water instead? One other thing I found tricky in distillation is that there are no holes anywhere... Doesn't the internal pressure increase due to heat? Does the condensation counter-act it by decreasing the pressure? If that what you got is all that's needed, distillation doesn't look too hard then. Would it be feasible to use rubber or some other tubing instead of the glass tubing?

I've been wanting for a while to try out extracting different scents from different plants but I'm lacking one crucial piece of apparatus, namely distillation set (or more precisely, the condenser part). They are available for purchase at very expensive prices so I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to make one that would work for my purpose... Considering other equipment, I have beakers, flasks, round bottom flasks, funnels, tubes, I have water and heat source etc... I was thinking of using polystyrene test tubes and then cutting and melting them such to make something that resembles a condenser, but before I go on with that I just wanted to see if anyone has any other ideas. I've looked around and found some interesting setups, this being one of them: http://orgchem.colorado.edu/hndbksupport/dist/distsetup/distsetmain.html and these being many of them; http://images.google.com.au/images?q=distillation+apparatus&hl=en&um=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title Wiki also has a nice diagram of how everything should look like. Basically I need to extract some of these; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_oils using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distill . And one other question, rather noobish, am I heading in the right direction here? Is this how scents are usually extracted in perfumery? I have a notion that a lot of scents are lab synthesized these days...

Well, it's questionable whether it would be nice, but it would definitely be interesting!

As many factories as necessary for the minimum requirements that will allow for survival and advancement of the colony should be built. To achieve that point Mars will most likely need Earth's support until it achieves it. But after it does it can simply declare "maturity" and carry on on its own. Now one thing that seems to have slipped out is the fact that I in no way promote this idea, or say that this will happen, what I'm simply saying is that it CAN happen and that this approach would allow Mars to become self-sufficient after a certain point, as opposed to Sayonara's "never". What I'm also suggesting is that Mars will never cut the communication with Earth willingly or want to be isolated unless Earth was under deadly virus attack or something alike. I have a weak belief that there would be such thing as Earth president, perhaps only the person or organisation responsible for interplanetary communications which would need to work much like UN, consulting all member countries before making decisions. But then again, it's too far into the future to possibly know or predict. Perhaps Mars would want independence for the goodness of both Earth and Mars, in which case Earth would agree since it wouldn't be reponsible for direct control of Mars and Mars would be able to do the things they think would be proper. That way the only thing Earth would need to do is maintain 'friendly' communications, exchange of information, research findings and anything else of a kind. As for aid, something that struck me recently, do you think Earth would want to provide Mars with aid all the time? What if it once refuses to do so, wouldn't that create tensions between the two planets? Quite possibly, perhaps that may even be the way it will happen. I never said it wouldn't though, I was only suggesting a possible approach otherwise.

60 or nothing!

If you like it take a look at this thread; http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24617 it has a larger image from the same experiment Where's mbarone gone now?

Yes it's for my house, but the thing is, there are 4 members of the family who use 4 computers in the house heavily! There are 2 computers that are almost always turned on, my brother's and mine. However I don't think it'll be a good idea to set my pc as gateway because I've experienced huge load before I had a router as all internet traffic was going through my pc (I tend to play online games often and I noticed I had immense lag due to my pc sharing IC.), thus the reason why I bought the router in the first place My brother's pc is way too unreliable to be used as anything at all and I don't want to put the load on my pc again since I still play online. I also noticed a bit of lag when I play DVDs or movie files from my hdd and I linked this to the network activity since it disappeared after I installed a router. I had hub previously. Thanks for the suggestion though. I hope to figure something out before "unknown users" drain our bandwidth allocation yet again!!

Damn it, I just realized there isn't enough space in my room for an extra computer, and I also don't feel like increasing our electricity bill by an extra pc that will run 24/7 for the sole purpose of controlling bandwidth. I think I'll go with the idea of limiting speed on each individual client, the only thing is that I can't find suitable software. By all looks of it I might need to make something in vb myself.. unless there is something out there..

LOL good point. We may well all be wrong but there are some certain high probabilities for things occuring, as both Sayonara and I have addressed. In reality, it's all speculation and we can't really know for 'sure' what will happen, but we like to speculate here on SFN, don't we? Anyway, I have a great parcel of land for sale in Gusev Crater if anyone's interested

He may have missed the point you and I were discussing but his point is equally as valid on its own. Mars has a lot of resources that will need to be used in the future and will only be possible to use those by the means of technologically advanced apparatus. SkepticLance's post is based on an early point in the timeframe.

I'm having trouble finding those examples, are these the ones you're referring to?: If so then I've already refuted those. Plutonium won't be necessary as they probably won't need to make any weapons or nuclear reactors that would use plutonium. They are more likely to use cold fusion or lots of hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells (or something else along those lines). Latest cancer research is not necessary and your point that this will result in high fertility implies that there will be high incidence of cancer on Mars? On Earth there is a lot cancer patients because we have a big population and practice bad habbits, Mars' population will probably have somewhat proportional number of cancer patients. It mightn't be cancer, it could be something else, we can't know, but the point remains. As long as the situation stabilizes on Mars to the point to which I referred earlier, no import from Earth would be necessary. Education and industrial/engineering specifications can all be reproduced on Mars from the available information previously imported from Earth. There might be some adjustments due to different materials available, gravity constant, magnetic fields etc but that will all probably be studied by Martians themselves. Also notice how you said: This somewhat suggests that you're still thinking to high temporal proximity within the early days of colonization. I don't see how Mars would be unable to 'catch-up' to be up-to-date with Earth with technology at certain point of time, or if you wanna say, to certain point of time at which Earth will be 6 months ahead, or let's even make it 2 years ahead, it doesn't even have to catch up with Earth exactly, it can catch up with Earth's technology so that it's 6 months behind for example. We can cut the communication then and let the Martians work they way around things. Their needs will be proportional to their size. One small factory on Mars can be enough to make clothes for entire Martian civilization. As their size grows they will have more people to work on production of materials and will then be able to make more factories to suit their needs which is pretty much a 'positive feedback system'. In case of very essential things like medicines and such, again, one pharmacy might be enough. They will have the ability to synthesize wide range of things pretty much the same way we do on Earth. The chemicals and materials required for the production of these things will all be readily producible on Mars at that time. Can you notice that you spoke of "emergent colony" again? Emergent colony might need saltpeter, so let it be so, but an advanced Martian colony will probably see no use of it. On the other hand by the time Mars is terraformed and at the point of time when it is up to date with technology on Earth (or 6 months behind, doesn't matter), Martians will be able to come up with saltpeter if they really want it by the means of advanced nuclear fusion or some other rather "mysterious" as you call it, means of technology. I didn't toss the example because it's difficult to get it but because it will probably not be used or required for Mars' sustainability. As you pointed previously, no example you put forward will probably be of interest because by the time Mars is 6 months behind Earth in technology and has stabilized its "Martian situation", it will probably have everything it needs, including enough resources previously imported from Earth for the production of anything that will allow them to survive AND advance. What happend there is that you have split my argument into separate pieces and then attacked the validity of each. Pieces of my argument on their own can easily be refuted but together they make a point. What I added after that is that "Mars will be able to make those resources with the help of technology". This is obviously the part you referred to as "mysterious happenings". It's true; I don't know how that will be achieved but by basing my predictions on current scientific findings that leaves us with a high possibility of 'things getting done'. The point can be reached, as I explained, Mars doesn't have to be EXACTLY in phase with Earth, but even 6 months behind is fine, or even a year or two. On such a huge timescale as to which I'm referring to, one year is almost meaningless. I am proposing both independence and isolationism (for the purpose of the argument of course, since isolationism is unlikely to happen). I was just using isolation to show you that at certain point Mars will not need any connections with Earth, while you continously strive to suggest the opposite. I think that our main line of confusion here is the time-frame. You are referring to a much smaller time frame and so are unwilling to "accept" the "mysterious happenings" in science that have "high confidence" of occuring during my great time period. I find it amusing how is it that from the sharing of Mars we came to such a question as the "survival of Mars". In order for Mars to be able to survive AND advance and for all the Martians to live a happy and wonderful life, the colonization of Mars must be planned ahead very carefully and the size of the colonization must be kept small enough so that the "point of equivalence - the point I was referring to when I spoke of technologically advanced Mars with 'stable situation'" can be reached relatively quickly. Again, as I said, smaller population size means less patiens per disease. The birth rate on Mars will probably allow for positive population change, or increase in population. This increase will gradually result in greater resource requirement which will again be balanced by higher available workforce. Positive feedback system. Already explained, you are looking at it too much from a practical side of things. Considering the time interval I'm referring to you can't really relate things to production of thermoplastics or anything else along those lines. While I may not be sure how exactly the problem will be overcome (step number 2 in that MARS PLAN thing ) I have high confidence that the problem will be overcome by the time it comes to that. The massive gap you speak of is exactly the gap that is between our arguments, namely the time gap! You refuse to believe that anything important will happen in a time period of say... let's make it 50,000 years, while all scientific evidence suggests otherwise! Of course I don't know how the problems will be solved, you may be right in that, but I have a valid vision based on scientific evidence. I don't recall me saying that pre-terraformed Mars would survive without Earth's assistance, in fact, I was saying exactly the opposite! Mars will need help from Earth until the situation stabilizes, majority of essential problems are solved and all the necessary apparatus required for a 'decent life' on a planet is assembled, including every important scientific finding reproduced on Mars (again 6 months behind is not a problem). That is the point at which Mars would be able to survive and advance from then on without Earth's help. Obviously Martians will have a tough time, no doubt about that, but provided the help from Earth there is a medium to high confidence that the society will indeed survive and develop. Well, lets take some 3000 years of human development, that might be a small time for extrapolation to the 50,000 years mark, but it's the only available data that we can work with, especially that the past 1000 years or so have seen exponential growth in a lot of things. It's true there have been humans loong time before that but there isn't really much data to work with. From that you can see that there is a high confidence of technological advance well beyond our current understanding. Nobody said it was, but there is a medium to high confidence. Indeed. Speaking of which I don't think it's going to be easy to find candidates to be first Martian colonists unless the plan is laid down perfectly. Being sure may imply that I am 99.9999% certain while having high confidence can imply being 90% certain. Dont' know exactly the meaning of both but high confidence is more proper term to use.

That is usually the case but not necessarily, I was making a side-comment in relation to space travel which may or may not have anything to do with Mars. There have been many side comments in this thread and as you pointed out, I tried to leave science out of it but as it seems it just doesn't work that way since science seems to be limiting factor in our discussion. It seems as if you've forgotten that this isn't happening today, tomorrow or any time soon. Lets use our imagination for a moment and say what could be some of the products/materials that Martians will not be able to make for themselves? What are the limiting factors that will disallow for these products to be made? Name me one example that you think might be of interest and we'll examine it. (apart from very heavy elements such as Plutonium, Uranium and others which will probably see no use for the Martians after a certain time period) Ok, here's logical deduction; In the initial stages of colonization of Mars, and some time afterwards, Mars will be highly dependent on Earth and its resources, including material and informational goods - everything as you stated - until it reaches a certain point (perhaps even a point of our current state on Earth; we're not dependant on any other planet are we?). The reason being is that after a certain time period Mars will be up-to-date with all the information Earth has to offer, let every book be copied and reproduced on Mars including all the research findings. Let the technology advance to a level at which Mars will be able to make anything we can (will be able to) make on Earth at that same time. AT that point lets cut ALL communication between Earth and Mars and ask ourselves this question: Is Mars going to be able to survive on its own? Clearly Mars will not have access to our latest cancer research but that doesn't mean every person on Mars will die from cancer. Clearly Mars will not have any imports from Earth but do we have any imports from other planets? (True; we have resources on Earth so we don't need imports, but Mars will be able to make those resources with the help of technology) If you see what I'm getting at, even if Earth's technology advances much rapidly than that of Mars, Mars will still be able to survive. No input from Earth would be necessary. I never said any of this would happen soon, but it would happen eventually. You pointed out that Mars will have enough of its own problems too, but these problems are unlikely to cause Mars to "die". We have our own problems on Earth too but we haven't died yet, though it gets close sometimes. I'm sure you've heard that a different element can be made from two other elements by the means of nuclear fusion. This is very primitive but it follows that after a certain time period it would be possible to make almost any required element from the elements you have available. Since this is far beyond you or me we won't go deeply into the science of it but it's good to acknowledge that it is possible. That way we can extrapolate our tech tree to things that aren't there, it's the main principle of science-fiction - and as you may know a lot of useful advances have been made directly from the ideas developed in science-fiction itself. I believe that is not correct. My reasoning was contained in my philosophy, it's just that you failed to extract it from there, which is ok since I reasoned myself in my responses above. Also, as I said, I tried to leave science out of it, however this thread has diverted to science long before this, or my last post. At the back of my mind I still hold the question of how and who will share Mars amongst who and when... You make a valid point but as I explained above, Earth does not need to give Mars the technology forever. Me being sure is perhaps a bit wrong of an expression, what I should've really said is that I have high confidence that technology will reach the required level. Good point.

I just realized that I could use another computer (unused) as gateway , the question is, how good would this machine have to be, in terms of hardware?

Perhaps you failed to notice, there were two words there: "space travel" in which I was referring to our space travel in general, not only 'space travel technology required to reach Mars'. This case you are making has a limited time domain for some reason. It is logically deducible that there will be a time when Mars will no longer need resources from Earth for its survival (excluding any luxurious resources they would possibly want to import from Earth for the same reason France imports bananas from Spain today). This can be deduced from the fact that technology is ever advancing and if you extrapolate it from the domain of say.. from 1235 to 2007, even though you probably won't predict exactly the "slope of advance", you will know(predict) that the "slope" will be upwards (or positive). And so while we may not know what the technology will be able to do we are very confident to say that things such as conversion of energy from one form to another will be greatly advanced in the future years, to the point where Martians will no longer need resources from Earth for its survival. Surely 50 years is a very short time, but infinity in your case is only assuming any of the two things: the rate of advance of technology will drop to zero, OR, the time domain for the existence of habitable Mars will not be large enough for the technology to reach the level sufficient to allow for Mars' self-sufficiency. The latter may be likely but I’m sure the technology will reach that level well before our Sun runs out.

No problems at all. We'll just wait for mbarone to clarify.

Thanks for your suggestions, I appreciate. I've been looking for stuff for a while, I've used softperfect's bandwidth limiter but it's a bit buggy I think, even when it's closed it does something to the connection to slow it down, had to uninstall it as it wasn't that practical either. Good try from softperfect though. I'm looking into limiting bandwidth on each individual client, sounds like only reasonable solution.

I take it you're implying that waking-life is the same as "false awakening" ? In my initial status I did not come across that second term so I did not find a wiki article you came up with (thanks) and thus the reason why I asked for it in the first place. Otherwise I readily relate to Wikipedia. Now I realise Waking Life is actually a movie that has something to do with dreaming. Never heard of it. So to confirm, is false awakening same as waking-life to which mbarone was referring to?