(Disclaimer: I am not a physicist, nor even a scientist).

The thing is, people talk about detecting or seeing "IR" as if it's a single entity, much like how they talk about seeing or detecting visible light. However, "IR" covers a much, *much* wider range than visible light (*) and "near" IR- which is just outside the visible light range- arguably has a lot more in common with visible light (and how it can be recorded) than the "far" IR closer to the other end, which is used in heat-sensitive cameras.

"Near" IR can be recorded on most regular digital cameras if the IR-blocking filter has been removed (i.e. they're sensitive to it by default and it has to be filtered out), or even if the IR-blocking filter is weak (some older cameras were like this). It looks interesting and different, much like how someone who can only see green or blue light might feel when seeing a photo of the red part of the spectrum. And it can be used for night vision if it's used with a near-IR light source (which people can't see, but is still easy to detect with unfiltered electronic sensors).

But it won't give you "heat vision" unless the thing you're viewing is so hot it's almost- but not quite- visibly glowing red (**). The wavelengths of IR given out by things at normal temperatures are much lower (i.e. closer to "far" IR) and require different detection equipment- the problem being of course that they traditionally had to be cooled to avoid detecting their own heat being emitted.

And in fact, IR-based "night vision" could refer to (at least) these two very different solutions- *either* the "easier but requires IR illumination" near-infrared device one could theoretically do with modified off-the-shelf camera sensors or far-infrared heat detection (i.e. detecting the objects' own heat).

Anyway, it sounds like this report is describing "heat vision" far-IR detection, since it mentions the problems with that, and how it gets around it. Just bear in mind that "infrared vision" could potentially refer to either near or far IR, and they're different kettles of fish.

(*) Visible light covers wavelengths from 380 to 700 nm (i.e. approx twofold difference from the shortest to the longest), IR covers from 700nm (0.7 micrometres) to 1mm (1000 micrometres), a factor of well over a thousand times difference!

(**) AFAIK this is as per:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... , i.e. as something gets hotter, the frequencies it gives off generally increase, from far-infrared to near-infrared, to red and then to yellow. (Yellow becomes "white hot" rather than blue because it's still emitting significant amounts of lower frequencies). So if it's almost- but not *quite*- red hot, it'll be emitting signficant amounts of near-infrared. Much cooler, and the radiation will be of lower wavelength.

Apparently most younger Japanese aren't much into it themselves either, and the "tradition" isn't, really. From this report:-

This covers the phenomenon in general in more depth:-

I kind of wonder what the legal issues would be if they *didn't* keep the activation servers working for the forseeable future.

Yes, I'm sure they've got a "you agree to give us your firstborn if we ask for it and not to sue us if we turn of the servers" clause in the EULA somewhere. Whether that would stand up in court- especially outwith the US- given MS's near-monopoly position on the desktop market (*) is open to question.

(*) Yes, MS are arguably losing dominance, not because anyone achieved the impossible and unseated them in the desktop arena, but because the current paradigm shift in computer hardware is moving things away from desktop PCs. Still a massively dominant company, however.

Whether you find it funny or not, XKCD at least has creativity and intelligence, and it's unfair to compare it with the awful "User Friendly". AFAICT, that only got where it was by targeting and pandering to the geek audience and being an online webcomic in the mid-to-late-90s when the former was still rare and the latter still somewhat novel.

The fact that it was badly-drawn (*) and not actually that clever in itself- so much as giving its oft-maligned (**) target audience an excuse to feel superior to others- didn't seem to matter.

As I once commented elsewhere:-

(*) XKCD isn't exactly detailed in the artwork stakes either, but that comes across as an intentional style, whereas User Friendly just looks like a wannabe of better-looking cartoons.
(**) This is before it was (allegedly) cool to be a geek.

Does it bother you that an argument has been made (by both yourself and others) that at least one slashdot user is a script already?

I'm sure I still have that purple Aminet CD kicking around somewhere...

"Tens of dollars" (cost price) would still have been a significant amount back then. Also, if, as others have commented, the PC Jr was already intentionally hobbled to avoid competing with IBM's more expensive machines, this reduced performance would likely have suited marketing anyway(!)

To be fair, AFAICT (*) "chiclet keyboard" is a word that seems to have changed its meaning over the years. In the PC Jr's day (again, AFAICT) it referred to *rubber-keyed* keyboards with the "chiclet" appearance. Rubber keyboards- like the PC Jr's- are not fun to type on.

The present-day Mac desktop keyboards often called "chiclet"- like this one- are, to be fair, not rubber keyed.

That said, I'd now like to agree with the parent and grandparent... they're still absolutely f*****g awful, style-over-substance garbage. I was typing on one (like the image above) today, and it's utterly horrid. I would blame it on the keys' lack of travel, but I've used laptop keyboards that are actually quite nice despite that. It may well be the "chiclet" layout, can't say. I've used it before as well, so it's not a case of being unfamiliar with it.

On the same machine I'd already swapped out the equally overrated "Magic" mouse mainly because its low profile might have looked good, but it was odious from an ergonomic point-of-view (i.e. nothing to hold in the hand, and I don't even have big hands).

Urgh.

(*) Based on what I've read from US sources. I live in the UK, and the expression "chiclet keyboard" wasn't used over here in the early-to-mid-80s (because "chiclets" gum wasn't sold here either). We simply called them "rubber keyboards".

Maybe he's getting it confused with the Spectravideo SV-328 (and SV-318) which *were* supposedly the design upon which MSX was based, although not 100% MSX-compatible themselves.

One quick check on Wikipedia later... Apparently CiF "Comment is Free" is something to do with The Guardian's website? Don't know, never posted there. The "last time" I referred to was on Slashdot as well, I just can't find the comment now...

Yeah, but that's not saying much- the UK's privatised train system is horrendously expensive compared to similar railways (*) elsewhere in Europe- it makes a mockery of the Conservatives' claimed motives for privatisation, that it supposedly increases competition and efficiency and drives down costs. (**) Years upon years of way above the rate of inflation increases on prices that weren't cheap to start off with. When even the Tory-friendly Daily F****** Mail is running a story on how shockingly expensive it is (***), you know it's bad.

(*) Run along OMG COMMUNIST!!!!111^w^w more socialist lines

(**) Then again, we all know that this is about Tory dogma and feathering their own nests, regardless of how they dress it up. Their recent privatisation of the Royal Mail, despite the fact that the majority of people in the UK- including many Conservative supporters!- were opposed to this, and the fact that it was blatantly sold off at far below its market value, makes obvious what most people had already figured out long ago. Expect the Royal Mail to go the way of the Dutch national mail service when *that* was privatised and is apparently very poor now.

(***) This story was the top of the search results last time I searched for a story to make this point, so go figure...

Why's that a "Well Duh"? The story was about teenagers, and unless you're exceptionally precocious, I suspect that you're not a retired teenager, right? And if you are, well, I suspect you're *not* a typical example... :-)

I think it's safe to assume they meant "the demographic group that are teenagers", i.e. the fact that you got included in the group of teenagers for several decades back doesn't mean that you still get to count towards the present-day "teenager" statistic!

Go back and read what I said. I wasn't responding to the original (lame) jokes, but calling out the OP's bullshit *response* of "black humour is a coping mechanism" being used by people who clearly *weren't* using it as such.

Specifically, these people *didn't* have the guts to say "yeah, I made a sick joke"- quite the opposite, they tried to put themselves in the same position as those actually affected by the event and grab the moral high ground.

That'd be why I didn't tell people what or what not to say at any point, then. I simply exercised my (equally legitimate) right to call them out on it.

Ironically, it sounds more like you're telling *me* what I shouldn't say- that *I* shouldn't be allowed to call people out on bullshit self-righteousness. "Too bad", because it doesn't work that like that. If someone's free to make a sick joke (and I never claimed they weren't), other people are just as entitled to call them a sick f*** or express their dislike. And if you respond to that with the weasellishly BS self-justification above, *I'm* quite entitled to call you out on that.

If this "offends you" then tough- freedom of speech cuts both ways. "Just get over it dude". :-P

Yeah, very poetic. Still the same old self-justifying misappropriation of "black humour as a coping strategy" being used to rationalise sick jokes by those who were neither involved in nor traumatised by the event being mocked. As I said last time:-

Bill Gates *does* have a brand new 20 year old body. He's just hired someone to occupy his old one and make occasional public appearances so that- as you suggest- no-one finds out.

Incidentally, I've managed to acquire a photograph of Gates in his new body... as a 20-year old *female*!