H2O/IP 124
AltImage writes "This interesting project uses water as an organic network between two computers. It analyzes the color of each pixel and 'prints' out pulses to the electronically controlled water valve - a different pulse pattern depending on the color of the pixel on screen."
Water isn't organic.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:4, Funny)
Water isn't organic..
I don't know, some of the stuff I've gotten out of the tap probably contains more organic material than most snack foods.
In other news ... (Score:2)
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it should be H2O-232 because it's more like a serial protocol. It's not bidirectional, so no handshaking is possible.
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:1)
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:2)
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:2)
Then they probably shouldn't invoke the air of science by using the scientific formula, H20, either...
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:2)
For example, the U.S. military refers to battalion-level artillery as "organic" (that is, part of the standard equipment of a standard battalion according to current doctrine). This differentiates it from, say, a division-level artillery battery that has been attached to the battalion for this particular mission or scenario (that is, the division artillery is not organic to the battalion, but "tacked on" as an addiotional, outside resource).
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:1)
Re:Water isn't organic.. (Score:1, Funny)
water cooling? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:water cooling? (Score:1)
After IP/Electricity you'd then get IP+Electricity/water
Cool. (Score:1)
The signal seems like it would be way too fragile, a little movement could screw it up.
Great... (Score:2)
Re:Great... (Score:1)
Would the water taste like apple when you first send a picture of an apple accross it ?
Or like chips ? Or candy !
The possibilities !!!
Re:Great... (Score:1)
>send a picture of an apple accross it ?
Knowing what makes up most of the images on the net, I'm not sure I'd want to taste it.
In fact, I'm pretty sure the water would need to be changed FREQUENTLY.
-l
Re:Great... (Score:1)
RFC for this? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:RFC for this? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RFC for this? (Score:3, Funny)
Gotta read these RFC's
Re:RFC for this? (Score:1)
Re:RFC for this? (Score:1)
Re:RFC for this? (Score:1)
Re:RFC for this? (Score:2)
Man, I groan every time I read the phrase "a group of Linux enthusiasts." There is never any way of telling what they hell they're going to do next, but its undoubtedly going to be a really really bad idea. I mean, wasn't it a group of Linux enthusiasts who are setting up that radio broadcast of the entire linux kernel's code? I don't feel like looking up that link...
Interesting as technology (Score:2, Insightful)
But as a Real Life application ?
Why would we need such new and complicated technologies if the current ones just work fine ?
I agree, new technologies might be faster and/ord better in the future, so it's defenetly worth looking into it some more.
Re:Interesting as technology (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine, just turn on the shower and you have a movie playing.
Feds at your door, just drink the water.. poof
The plus side is that now you can have internet access from your tap and finally we can stop bitching about cable companies....
Negatives: ;-)
Overclocking your AMD can vaporise your data... as if burnt motherboards werent enough
Re:Interesting as technology (Score:2)
Last time I checked, the Feds wanted [alternativesmagazine.com] us to drink the water :p
Re:Interesting as technology (Score:2)
Man this one is begging for it! (Score:5, Funny)
Man this one is begging for it too! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Man this one is begging for it too! (Score:1)
Therefore, I am the one that saved 1968. You're welcome.
Vaporware? (Score:3, Funny)
If it doesn't pan out, and gets a little "hot" from all the hype... it evaporates into vaporware ;-)
I just couldn't resist saying that!
this is just art (Score:3, Insightful)
This simply uses water as the medium instead of: fiber, wire, or air. Most likely, I would conclude that solid water is just too dynamic of a material to get anything useful out of it. For example, this display uses water drops, which are huge compared to electrons. Now, using electricity over water would be a little more interesting, but then it REALLY just becomes another medium for fiber wires. And if you want to get really creative, you can say that since there is so much matter in one drop of water, you can automagically make use of this inherent fact to send more data...then I say bah....because you can inherently make use of the quantum properties of electrons to get more out of them, and this is where we are REALLY going towards.
Thanks for contributing to the entropy of this planet you artist!
So: Just art...but good art. Well done!
Re:this is just art (Score:2)
I would conclude that, as solid water -- ice -- is crystalline, it isn't dynamic at all.
Re:this is just art (Score:1)
Re:this is just art (no its science) (Score:2)
Somebody above pointed out that this is the branch of science known as 'fluidics', and the equipment he used he may have gotten from any number of companies that produce fluidics instruments [fluidics.nl].
Re:this is just art (no its science) (Score:1)
Why? Because crap like this has already been done looonnng ago.
Take for example the rat and cheese computer. Thats like a decade old if not way more.
Or The 2 RFC's on IP over avians (birds) as the medium.
Moreover, as I said, he's simply using water in its solid form which, due to its size, is so innefficient relative to the minute size of the electron (something that we already harness quite well). Next, if you acknowledge the above argument, I reasoned that one might want to argue that to really make use out of this water as a new medium, you're going to have to look elsewhere than to its size (for communicating more information (or laying the foundations for research to do so) because smaller size = more information. Namely, you might have to look at its physicaly properties as huge bunch of matter. Well, the artist even says that he looks at surface tension, pressure....A) i highly doubt this is more than his own marketing hype. B) I've seen scientists struggle with the intracies of fluid dynamics for 40 years and they still have that much more time to go. I don't see this artist drawing, or citing ANY research on water dynamics. So, I concluded that there already is another front in science that takes something big that is composed of many parts like a water droplet, and analyzes it for its internal state, in order to make use of more information. Namely, pretend the electron is this big water droplet, and the analysis is quantum analysis, something that is well underway.
Finally, nearly EVERY material at one time or another has been tested for its information carrying capacity. Thats all some electrical engineers/physicists do. And this includes water.
Electrons are just so much faster than anything that water can offer. And in my first post, I already discussed that water has been tried as a medium for electrons, its just that containing this water is less feasible than simple wire/fiber/air.
Why waste the water? (Score:1)
Turbulence could be a problem, but challenges is what's it's all about, right?
Imagine.. (Score:2)
Clever, But Useful? (Score:2)
Using organic materials for data seemed to be perfect with cybernetics and other cyborg-esque technology; however, this idea is far from it. It's more closer, it seems, to Morse code - it apparently uses differing amounts and timings of water droplets to signify the color of the particular pixel.
In addition, the packets are supported by gravity; hard to imagine how this could be done in a horizontal setting - I'm sure most of you know how fluids and pressure work. (Difficult to pass packets of water horizontally)
So, anyone have good uses for this 'protocol'?
Re:Clever, But Useful? (Score:2)
Not to mention trying to ACK the received packets/droplets... I wonder what transfer speeds he gets, around 1 dps[1] maybe? Would it be possible to modulate the droplets to achieve higher speeds? Or add a squirt gun to pass water upwards/sideways? The possibilities for getting really wet are endless!
[1] drop per second, of course. :-)
Re:Clever, But Useful? (Score:1)
The lack of descriptive tech stuff like that really made me doubt the validity of the project. Then again, I've never seen this site before so I really can't be sure one way or another. But if it is real, I think it's pretty cool.
How refreshing. (Score:4, Informative)
There was another link I can't find anymore to a lab moving microscopic drops of water around on a sillicon substrate really fast. The target apps are in biochemistry, but iirc the design used the liquid to do some logic, also.
What this REALLY is! (Score:2, Funny)
Its really a
Come on now.. you can call it all the fancy shmancy names you like but that what it is eh?
Cant fool us!
Creepy! (Score:3, Funny)
HELP! I'M BEING HELD PRISONER AT THE RESERVOIR!
I keep telling myself it's just the water company messing with our heads, but...
So given this new technology... (Score:1)
Based on an old idea (Cryptonomicon) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Based on an old idea (Cryptonomicon) (Score:1)
Delay lines... (Score:2)
Look into "nickel wire" delay line "memory"...
I once took apart an old (early 1970s) desk calculator (to this day I wish I hadn't), which used discrete transistor logic for the ALU and nixie tubes for the display (woot!). As I was taking it apart, there was one strange item that I didn't recognise (from my then limited electronics knowlege) - a silver box, about 3 inches on a side, and about an inch tall, with four wire coming out of it.
Being the idiot that I was, I wanted to know what was inside the box (it was sealed. A hammer, a screwdriver and some plier opened it up - and inside was a coiled wire (about three turns), and was connected at each end to what (I later learned) were piezo transducers.
This coil of wire in the box (not sure if the box was sealed for dust protection, or if there was a slight vacuum or something) acted as the "memory" function for the calculator, using a serial style pulse train over the wire to store the numbers.
Yeah, I got to find out how it worked, but I will never forgive myself for taking it apart...
HDTV watch out (Score:2)
Would this still be "/. worthy" if it transmitted 1280x1024 true color X sessions? Or only if a beowulf cluster was implemented through this?
Serious: This is a neat "geek" project but nothing spectacular. Would the height difference be needed if we closed off the system so that pressure waves could transfer?
Why water? (Score:5, Funny)
Wine - An object lesson in classy networking.
Milk - Don't have a cow, but your MOO just got creamed.
Diesel - Oh, you knew they were going to get into high tech somehow.
Coffee - Finally the name "Java" makes sense!
Antifreeze - Hey, it just might work!
Urine - For something that has pissed you off so much over the years
yeah antifreeze ! (Score:1)
... would be especially useful for keeping WANs up and running in nordic country winters eh?... and besides it tastes soo yummy...
As the title of this article factually denotes... (Score:1)
Reminds me of Soggy Noodle... (Score:5, Funny)
I unglued myself from the swetty membrane that had formed between the edges of my ass and the chair, delved deep into foggy memory banks for details on how to move my arms and legs, got up and robo'ed to the kitchen with curled fingers to make pasta. It was a LOOONG code session, damn.
Halfway back, I got the idea to use noodles to connect the device I was working on to my PC, just for fun. Easy enough to do: the serial line from my debugger to the outboard gear was just three wires.
Some avid hacking with duct-tape, judicious use of PCB-posts, and 10 minutes later, I had things working!! I could talk to my device over the soggy noodle!
So funny, sending commands over pasta!
Okay, I went home after that. It didn't work so well the next day, when the pasta had dried up and stuck to the edges of the PCB
Re:Reminds me of Soggy Noodle... (Score:3, Funny)
IP/H20 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IP/H20 (Score:2)
So wouldn't that be TCP/IP/H2O ?
Re:IP/H20 (Score:1)
Re:IP/H20 (Score:1)
Re:IP/H20 (Score:2)
Yep. When I saw the title I was thinking:
"Yeah, right! How the hell are they delivering WATER over an internet connection!"
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One practical application (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One practical application (Score:2)
Now.. I could be wrong here.. but isnt this exactly what a fish tank is for?
To turn the movements of a fish into something visual?!
Re:One practical application (Score:2)
Phewww! (Score:2)
Other way around? (Score:3, Funny)
Alan
Re:Other way around? (Score:2, Interesting)
If I was making something like this, it would probably have a low-bandwidth protocol. I mean, look at that grayscale picture. That just spells "My Network Is Very Slow". I wouldn't go encapsulating the packets in IP....
In Dutch, we would call his naming "Dichterlijke vrijheid", which translates to "Poetic freedom". It doesn't have to make sense, it should just convey the idea
H2O + IP (Score:5, Funny)
careful, carnivore is watching.
This is nearly as silly... (Score:2)
-psy
Time (Score:1)
Re:Time (Score:3, Informative)
If we assume that drops need to start off at least 10mm apart, using the high school classical equation t = sqrt(2s/g), we get about .045s or around 20 drops per second. (They will be physically much further apart at the bottom, of course, but the same distance apart in time.)
Now assume we use classical serial communication, 1 start bit, one stop bit, one parity bit. That's 11 bits to a byte, or very roughly 2 bytes per second. The problem is mainly one of error correction. There is no back channel, so any errors cannot be corrected as there is no retransmit request. This is definitely not related to TCP/IP which was intended to be a robust protocol. It's just the equivalent of Morse code. Even so, at about 100 bytes per minute, and with the opportunity for compression, the transmission rate is about as fast as an ordinary Morse operator.
Re:Time (Score:1)
Re:Time (Score:2)
If you want to know why I am wasting time typing this stuff, I've just finished replacing the attic ball valve, and moving between the ballvalve and the stopcock 35ft below was a real nuisance. Plumbing is on my mind at the moment.
I thought of this a long time ago... (Score:2)
Wrong way round (Score:2)
Re:Wrong way round (Score:1)
Re:Wrong way round (Score:1)
But is it Art? (Score:2)
If someone says it's art, then I gauss it is.
It's without a doubt poor engineering. Inefficient and error prone.
If a hydro-exictric,mechanical means were to be used to do TCP/IP, and you chose not to conduct the electrical signal through what would probably be non-pure, highly conductive water, I would be more inclined to use water pressure to do the job rather than drops of water.
But then that's me and I never understood the art of Yoko Ono.
One Ring to Transmit Them (Score:3, Funny)
So a Token Ring system done this way would be a viscous circle?
Re:One Ring to Transmit Them (Score:2)
Escher alert! Escher alert!
computers are separated by a distance of at least 10 meters in height, such as in a stairwell.
-
Lacks realism (Score:1)
Finally the excuse I've been waiting for... (Score:2, Funny)
DoS Attack? (Score:3, Funny)
Big Deal (Score:2)
A kid stands beside the PC. The Computer analyzes a picture, converts it to 16x16, blares out '2!', the kid runs downstairs, presses the number on a keyboard, runs back upstairs, the computer blares '0!', kid runs downstairs, presses number, etc etc etc. Voila! Greyscale image in the downstairs monitor.
Look, an organic network!
D
What a relief! (Score:1)
April Fools (Score:2, Funny)
Done that, sorta... (Score:1)
Life really does imitate art.
IP? (Score:1)
/. humor bait (Score:1)
Welcome to the new Millenium (Score:1)
It's rather dissapointing what the world seems to have come to.
Rather than look at a concept as an interesting idea, vision or technology, (as some people have regarding the topic) the majority of responses are poor attempts at witticism, declarations about the passe nature of the concept or a casual derision of any achievement followed by an audacious expression of hot air about how they could have done better.
Perhaps a medium that allows an individual to express their opinions to such a large group of people needs to be licensed based on a system of IQ and decorum. Probably myself included.
From a momentary snapshot on humanity's greatest communicative achievement, the future doesn't look so bright for our potential global society, nor for us as a species. This is even more disturbing coming from 'geeks' who are the supposed intelligentia of the new Millenia. To that end i'd like to express my dissapointment in the human race as a whole and go about my misanthopy in silence.
To those people who expressed interest in the concept: I'd be interested in finding out if this is a hoax or a joke like RFC2549, and if not whether the inventor plans to register an RFC for OSI interoperability. The rest of Jonah's (i presume; the inventor) projects are awesome like Common Reference point, SpeakerPhone and especially Tele-TV. Given the design of his site i think that he is displaying his projects as a resume and not in a format that allows others to duplicate or contribute to his work, which is frustrating but given the attitude to one project in this forum alone i'm not surprised.
Comments and suggestions of a positive nature welcome.
Last Post! (Score:1)
for he seems to be passing a critical judgment on them, when he may be
simply making a limiting statement about himself.
-- Sidney Harris
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Re:There's nothing organic about water. (Score:2)
Re:Imagine... (Score:3, Funny)
First I cant vouch for.. but definately it will be your last after you get modded to hell and back, and before you go for the ride.. dont forget to turn of that TAP, you dont want ATARI 2600 images travelling around your house.. do you ;-) ?
Re:Imagine... (Score:1)
So I guess my cunning plan didn't work then..?
Damn... ;o)
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:1)