...as ever I appear to be the only person who finds it depressing to be reminded what ludicrous lengths corporations go to to extract money from parents using their children..
How about a home DNA fingerprinting kit? (http://www.popsci.com/popsci/bown/2003/article/0,18881,537113,00.html) Now that is a good way to get kids asking awkward questions of their parents...
Fortunately, that kit only seems to let kids extract DNA from things, not actually analyse and compare it.
Give it another ten years, though, and Casio will make a wristwatch that tells you who a DNA sample belongs to by looking it up on the Internet wirelessly while you wait.
Well, actually no. (I care about the environment, but I've still not seen any persuasive, yet alone conclusive, arguments that we're heading for any kind of disaster at the global, as opposed to the local, scale.)
But I'm not sure why cutting cheese with a laser need be environmentally unfriendly, anyway. Obviously, cheese needs to be cut — why not cut it with a laser? Is there any fundamental inefficiency in lasers that I'm not aware of? I can't think of anywhere energy would go other than into the cutting beam.
Looks like that kind of laser (http://www.solarlaser.com/nd_yag.htm) has an efficiency of about 2%. I'd expect that all the rest of the energy goes to heating up the laser material (and thence into the cooling water).
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 08:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 08:55 am (UTC)Well, I bet
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 09:03 am (UTC)(Well, unless it's seriously unpleasant cheese, I suppose, in which case you may have a point.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 09:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 09:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 10:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 10:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 11:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 11:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 12:36 pm (UTC)Give it another ten years, though, and Casio will make a wristwatch that tells you who a DNA sample belongs to by looking it up on the Internet wirelessly while you wait.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 02:01 pm (UTC)But I'm not sure why cutting cheese with a laser need be environmentally unfriendly, anyway. Obviously, cheese needs to be cut — why not cut it with a laser? Is there any fundamental inefficiency in lasers that I'm not aware of? I can't think of anywhere energy would go other than into the cutting beam.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 02:26 pm (UTC)Looks like that kind of laser (http://www.solarlaser.com/nd_yag.htm) has an efficiency of about 2%. I'd expect that all the rest of the energy goes to heating up the laser material (and thence into the cooling water).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 04:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-14 03:05 am (UTC)