Well, if it was me, I'd mount four metal arms at the compass points on the array. I'd have them converge just before the focus point, and mount a set of lenses there, to collect the light into a single beam. The first lens would refract the light so it was pointing forward, then additional lenses would set a new focal point somewhere in front of the device.

I'd put the first lens just behind the focal point.

What do you think?

How did you know about that? I... Uh...

Ok, what can I say, she was pretty hard to forget. I wonder what happened to her?

Stone. Fox.

So, back when I was an undergrad and used to play around on MUDs, my roommate and I wound up talking to a young woman who claimed to be a hacker. She wanted to get together, and asked if she could bring a friend. Figuring we were about to get incredibly laid, we invited her up to the university. Young and dumb, what can I say.

We met her and her friend at a rest stop. We waited for a long time, and were about to leave when an incredibly ramshackle old sedan rolled up, with its muffler clanking and rattling, its headlights flickering, and great clouds of blue smoke trailing out behind. A beautiful girl leapt out of the car, followed by her friend: a very tall, very skinny punker dude.

Our spirits were crushed, but being polite computer science students, we couldn't figure out how to get rid of them. They didn't have enough gasoline to get home, but they DID have booze. So we went back to the university.

Immediately they wanted to "hack a computer", and marched to the computer lab, which was still open. This was where we talked on the MUD. There was no talking them out of it. Trailing behind them, wondering what on earth they thought they were going to be able to do from a computer lab, we somberly shuffled along.

On seeing a computer, the girl leapt into action! jumping into the seat, she said "I'm gonna hack this bitch!" and her boyfriend perched on the back of her seat to egg her on. I said something like "hey, look, don't do anything that'll get anyone in trouble, ok?" and she said something like "don't worry, I'm leet, nobody's ever going to know I was here!" This did not soothe my fears. I was about to say something else when she got a DOS prompt, and started typing in random passwords.

> God
> File not found. (I don't remember the exact words)
> Sex
> File not found.

(This went on for a long time.)

My roommate and I chatted quietly a few feet away, greatly relieved. We admitted our suspicion that this person did not, in fact, know anything about computers, or possibly anything else. To our enormous relief, the person appeared to be harmless. Also, it was becoming clear that neither one of us were going to get any. We wondered what we should do. We didn't want to be rude.

Suddenly, I had a thought. "Let's get her into the MUD!" My roommate thought that was an excellent idea, so we said "Hey, somebody wrote this path on a piece of paper over there... Maybe it'll get you in!" She tried it, and was allowed to log into the MUD. She yelled out in triumph! She was invincible!

She played happily on the MUD for about a half hour, with her boyfriend proudly telling us how "leet" she's always been, and then we went back to our room. We let them crash on the suite couch, and they were gone in the morning.

I wonder how many "hackers" are like this? Just trying stuff they saw on TV, with no understanding of what's actually going on?

Anyway, she was gorgeous, so I think we can be forgiven for indulging her a bit. She was about 5'5, with pale skin, medium brown long straight hair down to her hips, and a mix of hippie and punk clothes. Such an appealing woman... Not really connected to reality, exactly, but definitely not boring.

Definitely. I think Nobel is amazing. Walternate is kind of a totalitarian; I found it a little distressing that in an interview, the writers said he was a GOOD guy trying to save his universe.

Trying to save his universe, sure. I'll buy that.

But he's also a despot, working for a totalitarian government!

(Walter makes up for it, he's a gas:

Van Amburgh is the man, who goes to all the shows
He goes into the lion's cage, and tells you all he knows;
He sticks his head in the lion's mouth, and keeps it there a-while,
And when he pulls it out again, he greets you with a smile.)

There's a great YouTube version too, but it ends with a lame joke -- the last two lines go too far over the top and they wreck it.

So far, I count at least five versions plus YouTube.

BTW: My favorite Abbott and Costello skit is Slowly I Turned, which apparently is a very old Vaudeville joke. The Three Stooges did a great version of that...

It's been bouncing around the internet for a while... There's a great YouTube version, they get the voices almost perfect.

Well, obviously (?) I was kidding, but if you REALLY want to know, I love Fringe. I've got the first two series on DVD, and I've been watching Season 3 on Hulu.

I love the crazy professor. He is the most entertaining thing online or off.

But you know, Fringe does have a lot of comedy in it, so my joke worked, I think.

But... But... He started it!

(Of course, I didn't make that Bush joke up... It's from the Internet)

George Bush: "Condoleeza! Nice to see you. What's happening?"
Condoleeza Rice: "Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China."
George: "Great. Lay it on me."
Condoleeza: "'Hu' is the new leader of China."
George: "That's what I want to know."
Condoleeza: "That's what I'm telling you."
George: "That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?"
Condoleeza: "Yes."
George: "I mean the fellow's name."
Condoleeza: "Hu."
George: "The guy in China."
Condoleeza: "Hu."
George: "The new leader of China."
Condoleeza: "Hu."
George: "The Chinaman!"
Condoleeza: "Hu is leading China."
George: "Now whaddya' asking me for?"
Condoleeza: "I'm telling you Hu is leading China."
George: "Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?"
Condoleeza: "That's the man's name."
George: "That's whose name?"
Condoleeza: "Yes."
George: "Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?"
Condoleeza: "Yes, sir."
George: "Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East."
Condoleeza: "That's correct."
George: "Then who is in China?"
Condoleeza: "Yes, sir."
George: "Yassir is in China?"

Condoleeza: "No, sir."

George: "Then who is?"

Condoleeza: "Yes, sir."

George: "Yassir?"

Condoleeza: "No, sir."

George: "Look, Condoleeza. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone."
Condoleeza: "Kofi?"
George: "No, thanks."
Condoleeza: "You want Kofi?"
George: "No."
Condoleeza: "You don't want Kofi."
George: "No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N."
Condoleeza: "Yes, sir."
George: "Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N."
Condoleeza: "Kofi?"
George: "Milk! Will you please make the call?"
Condoleeza: "And call who?"
George: "Who is the guy at the U.N?"
Condoleeza: "Hu is the guy in China."
George: "Will you stay out of China?!"
Condoleeza: "Yes, sir."
George: "And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N."
Condoleeza: "Kofi."
George: "All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone."

They bought PCs with Windows (and Microsoft counted the sale) then they installed *NIX!

I kid, I kid...

Geek here too. You see, there's this thing called a "joke". It's when one guy says something silly, or funny, or unexpected, and then the other guy laughs. You should look it up on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

Well, that's true; I have all the seasons of Alias on DVD, and after the first couple of seasons, it's nearly impossible to figure out who's betraying who, why, or whether they're really betraying the person or up to some other weird thing. It kills suspension of disbelief, because NOBODY could flip back and forth between different sides that many times, no matter how crazy or diabolical they were.

Also it was a little too "LA" for me. Their headquarters didn't look anything like a government run operation. I didn't see any cubicles, any Dilbert strips, any nagging posters about data security or timecard procedures... It reminded me of a modeling agency, maybe, or a magazine publishing house.

I kind of liked the nerd with the huge forehead though. Nice to see him get married and procreate. But in real life, that guy would NEVER get sent out in the field, or get captured and tortured, etc. And, yeah, he'd be "dying alone". ;)

And another thing: Jennifer Garner is a little too recognizable to be running around undercover all over the place, isn't she? By the end of season 1, EVERYONE would know who she was and what she looked like, and the instant she showed her face she'd be grabbed off the street. It's not like she ever really looked all that different. You can't just put on a wig and a new dress and TA DA! I mean, WE always recognized her, and we're just couch potatoes! I would think super-spies would be even better at saying "Hey, isn't that that chick who blew up headquarters last week? GET HER!"

Still, I did enjoy watching them run around and blow stuff up. Kind of a mixed bag.

What are you talking about? Fringe is a situation comedy about fringe science. I love it, it's hilarious.

Especially that wacky professor and his psycho alter ego.

The only better geek comedy is Eureka.

Wait; are you saying they're trying to be SERIOUS?

Well, the real reason you should feel insulted is that they think you're not going to figure out how to use the screw.

Just find a flat-bladed screwdriver whose diameter is equal to the full span across two of the rounded areas (or grind one down to size) and you're off to the races. Remember to be gentle but firm as you unscrew your pentalobular screw.

I've done this before with weird laptop screws, it's not too hard. As long as the screwdriver is too wide to slip out of the rounded area when you turn the screw, you'll open that iPhone right up.

What I find funny is that the brainiacs at Apple think this concept is going to work.