HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: IMAGING.CLUB@OFFICE.WANG.COM ("Imaging Club")
Newsgroups: sci.optics,sci.med,biz.comp.software
Subject: Optikos optics newsletter
Date: 29 Jul 92 19:22:33 GMT
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs

Please phone your requests for this free Opticos newsletter
subscription to Michele at (617) 354-7557, or mail them to:
286 Cardinal Medeiros Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02141.  This
company is not on either Internet/Usenet or the Wang imaging
Email network, since they are not a Wang imaging business partner.

I called them up and found out that they are sending copies
out internationally for free also.  However, they are probably
sending it air mail, rather than federal express, so it
probably will take longer.

Michael.Willett@OFFICE.Wang.com

-------------------------------- Original Memo --------------------------------
CC:      Imaging Club                   From:      Imaging Club
Subject: Optikos newsletter             Date Sent: 07/16/92

Newsgroups: sci.optics,sci.med,biz.comp.software
Subject: New Optikos optics newsletter

I just received my copy of the latest Optikos optical
engineering newsletter.  It includes interesting articles
on testing of intraocular lenses and optical design software.
The contact there for getting a free subscription is
listed as Suzanne (or Michele) at (617) 354-7557 in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Michael.Willett@OFFICE.Wang.com
From: hnr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Harvey Rutt)
Newsgroups: sci.optics
Subject: Re: Looking under water with your eyes open
Date: 30 Jul 92 08:02:03 GMT

In <1992Jul26.162342.19281@tpki.toppoint.de> ulrich@tpki.toppoint.de (Ulrich Gall) writes:


>When you look under water with your eyes open, it looks blurry
>of course.

>But what if you are VERY short-sighted?

>Did anyone ever calculate this all the way through? Or try it?


>>I never calculated my way thro' (don't have the data on curvature
etc of my eye!) but I am **very** short sighted and things are quite
definitely better under water.
None the less I use goggles with a flat outer surface and ground to
correct inner surface when snorkelling, so I can see both in & out of
the water.Not as good as my specs, but a **lot** better than nothing
Harvey Rutt, Southampton UK

>	Ulrich
>-- 
>Ulrich Gall		ulrich@tpki.toppoint.de
>2300 Klausdorf
From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Newsgroups: sci.optics
Subject: Re: HELP wiith BINOCULARS....!!!!
Date: 24 Jul 1992 23:31:15 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California
NNTP-Posting-Host: 131.243.192.10

In article <1992Jul21.085054.3365@email.tuwien.ac.at> gast@next.ben-fh.tuwien.ac.at (Gast) writes:

>Remark 1: If you want to guess the magnification of an optical instrument  
>(e.g. a telescope or a simple lense) try this: look with one eye through  
>the instrument, with the other eye without the instrument at a certain  
>thing (a tree, a person,...). With some practise you will see both, the  
>original and the magnificated picture, which you can compare. 

Here's another crude way of measuring the magnification:
Measure the exit pupil with a ruler.  Say it comes out 5 mm.  Measure
the objective diameter.  Say it comes out 50 mm.  Then the magnification
is 50/5 = 10X.  I've used this any number of times on small, unknown 'scopes;
it works well.

Oh yeah, to measure the exit pupil diameter, just point the binocs at
something bright and diffuse like a well-lit piece of paper or the sky.
Then, holding your eye back from the ocular a foot or two, you should
be able to see a bright disk hovering behind the ocular.  That's the
exit pupil.  Measure its diameter by holding the ruler right there in
the exit pupil's plane.

John Bercovitz     (JHBercovitz@lbl.gov)

Newsgroups: sci.optics
From: siegman@EE.Stanford.EDU (Anthony E. Siegman)
Subject: Re: HELP wiith BINOCULARS....!!!!
Organization: Stanford University
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 19:34:13 GMT

   Just a minor comment to offer here, but all older designs of
binoculars have a focusing _wheel_ between the tubes that you turn
back and forth with a fingertip to focus.  Some more modern designs
have a kind of double-sided _lever_ on top of the binoculars -- you
push down on one side or the other to focus closer or farther away.
For just general signtseeing, I find the lever style a lot handier.


Newsgroups: sci.optics
From: marina@tk.mainet.msk.su (Naumenko M.V.)
Subject: To anybody who is interesting in science
Reply-To: marina@tk.mainet.msk.su
Organization: Moscow Aviation Institute, PDTK
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 13:22:19 GMT

          TO  ANYBODY  WHO IS INTERESTING IN SCIENCE
        We apply to everybody who interested in  future  Russian
science; who   would  like  to assist  it  to integrate in World
science society.
        We need information about Funds and other  organizations
who interested in  attraction russian  science organizations  to
research within  the limits active and  plan science proects and
directions of  this  researches   but also about  conditions  of
precipitation  russian scientists   in this proects.  Besides we
would like to know about questions of finance.
        We pin   our hopes on  establishment of interaction  and
development of international cooperation.
        Best regards.                 Marina V.Naumenko



Newsgroups: sci.optics
From: gast@next.ben-fh.tuwien.ac.at (Gast)
Subject: Re: HELP wiith BINOCULARS....!!!!
Organization: Technical University of Vienna
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 08:50:54 GMT

In article <1992Jul18.223241.41699@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>  
christos@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
> 
> I would like to get some information about binoculars. I have looked at  
some
> specifications and I would like to know they mean.

Q:> 1. What does 10X50 mm means? Is 10mm the length of the objective  
length 
> and 50mm  the length of the eyepiece or vice versa?

A: I guess the unit mm causes the troubles. If BOTH numbers would be  
length, it had to be mm^2. So here is the solution:

The first number is the magnification, the second one is the diameter of  
the front lense in mm. 

Q:> Using these nubers can you
> determine the magnification that the binoculars provide?

A: See above.

Remark 1: If you want to guess the magnification of an optical instrument  
(e.g. a telescope or a simple lense) try this: look with one eye through  
the instrument, with the other eye without the instrument at a certain  
thing (a tree, a person,...). With some practise you will see both, the  
original and the magnificated picture, which you can compare. 

Remark 2: The greater the diameter of the front lense, the more light  
passes the instrument. This is especially important at dawn. Your  
instrument has a rather big (and therefore good) diameter.

Q: > 2. What does the spec "at 1000 yards 367ft field of view" mean? The
> magnification is 10times. Does this mean that at 1000 yards you can see  
an
> object that is 36.7ft long/wide barely covering the entire lens? 

A: This is partially correct. The magnification is unneccessary. (I guess  
the error with the decimal point leads from this). The term means, that  
you can see an object that is 367ft (not 36.7ft) long/wide barely covering  
the entire lens. A good optical instrument has the right field of view:

* if it is too big, the picture is graeter than the diameter of your eye  
lens, this would be an 'overhead'.
* if it is too small, you will see a black frame around the picture. 


Hope I could help you!

Harry
Newsgroups: sci.optics
From: chennankb@woods.ulowell.edu
Subject: HELP REGISTER Waveguide holography researchers
Summary: help wanted          
Keywords: waveguides
Reply-To: chennankb@woods.ulowell.edu
Organization: University of Lowell
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 20:22:06 GMT

I have recently come across a renewed interest in waveguide holography.

But I have not yet found much literature on it.  Is there anyone who
 
could provide some information here .
From: hnr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Harvey Rutt)
Newsgroups: sci.optics
Subject: Re: HELP wiith BINOCULARS....!!!!
Date: 23 Jul 92 17:26:24 GMT

Who makes the type with a lever? I have never seen that system, sounds
useful. 
Personally I use 8 x 30 as general purpose, a very common choice in
the UK, and 10 x 50 if looking for wildlife. I find the 7-8 x 20 or so
which are widely sold as 'very convenient etc' too dim to be useful,
especially dawn/dusk in overcast UK.
They may be OK in the US South West though!
Harvey Rutt, Southampton UK
Newsgroups: sci.optics
From: dpbsmith@world.std.com (Daniel P. B. Smith)
Subject: Re: HELP lux, lumens,etc.
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 01:32:15 GMT

Light and radiation are inherently complicated, because you have
a vector field (light has not just an intensity but a DIRECTION at
every point in space).  In addition you have all of the usual
historical garbage of English and metric units, new definitions
intended to be equivalent to old ones, cm versus meter-based systems,
and units that differ from each other by factors of four pi because
some kinds of problems come out even with one kind of units and some
with the other.

Lux and footcandles are the same kind of thing, i.e. they have the
same dimensions and can be converted. Lux is the metric unit, footcandles
are the English unit. The name "footcandle" is considered to be a bogus
way to name a unit these days because it is NOT dimensionally feet*candles.
So, the metric unit, which you might expect to be called a "metercandle,"
is called a lux instead. One footcandle is the illuminance on a surface
a foot away from a candle; one lux is the illuminance on a surface a
meter away from a candle.  There are 10.76 lux to a footcandle (3.28 feet
per meter squared = 10.76). Roughly, you convert footcandles to lux by
multiplying by ten.

Lux and footcandles measure illuminance, which is basically how brightly
a surface is illuminated.  

Lumens measure luminous flux, sort of like the total amount of light;
lux and footcandles sort of measure how thinly the light is spread.  A
light bulb gives off a certain number of lumens which you can read on the
package.  Close up, the same bulb can illuminate a surface with lotsa lux.
Far away, the light is spread out and the illuminance is less.  Same
number of lumens -- more surface area lit -- less illuminance.

One lux is one lumen per square meter.

--Daniel P. B. Smith
dpbsmith@world.std.com
From: eachus@dr_no.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Teraforming Venus/ Throwing Snowballs
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:02:36 GMT
Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.

In article <Jul.22.21.05.41.1992.17421@planchet.rutgers.edu> 71450.1773@compuserve.com (Steven B. Harris) writes:

      So, in short, it looks like we're stuck on the issue of
   teraforming Venus, unless we're willing to wait much longer than
   several hundred years, or unless we find some way to spend energy
   on Venus at a far higher rate than the rate Venus itself receives
   energy from the Sun.  Perhaps putting up REALLY large numbers of
   mirrors to broil Venus is the answer, as suggested by Drexler and
   others (I believe).  The pesky planet's horrible climate combined
   with its near proximity does seem an affront to good taste, and I
   do agree that we ought to do something about it, if only for the
   sake of aesthetics.

   Gee...I had always thought that terraforming Venus was going to be
easy!  Since the major component of the atmosphere is H2SO4 (sulphuric
acid) creating plenty of water and oxygen is no problem if you have
somewhere to put the sulphur, so either create large underground
sulphur lakes which will freeze when the temperature drops, or expose
metallic oxide ores to the atmosphere MxO + H2SO4 --> MxSO4 + H20.
This assumes that there are large amounts of metal oxides buried on
Venus.  Without lots of digging, this is just a guess, but a pretty
good one.  If Venus started with the same element mix as earth, we can
assume that tectonic processes cooked the sulphate rocks (MxSO4 -->
MxO + SO2 + 1/2 O2) and spewed the SO2 and O2 into the atmosphere
where it converted water to H2SO4.  This happens on earth, but the
H2SO3 and H2SO4 get washed out of the atmosphere by the rains and
react with carbonate rocks to complete the cycle.

    Note that if this assumption is true, we can have wonderful energy
pollution on Venus.  Mine rocks and burn them in the atmosphere to
power your air conditioner while producing oxygen as a by-product.

--

					Robert I. Eachus

with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
use  STANDARD_DISCLAIMER;
function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is...
From: mshute@cs.man.ac.uk (Malcolm Shute)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Nanotechnology speed (Nano-War)
Date: 23 Jul 92 01:18:19 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester UK


In article <Jul.17.15.39.52.1992.18531@planchet.rutgers.edu> leech@cs.unc.edu (Jon Leech) writes:
>In article <Jul.14.21.17.27.1992.16781@planchet.rutgers.edu>, lev@suned1.nswses.navy.mil (Lloyd E Vancil) writes:
>|>	   While Mars getting a breathable atmosphere is
>|>	   fairly simple, it seems Venus would be a more
>|>	   complex problem.  What would be the simplest approach?
>    (2) Chemically remove most of the carbon in solid form. Some
>	possibilities for nanotech here, perhaps. How much energy is
>	needed to convert 4*10^23 grams of CO2 into diamond and oxygen?

Simpler, surely, to import some bacteria up there to fix the carbon?
Instead of using sunlight as the energy source, surely they could just
use the thermal energy already on the planet... in that way, they would
not only remove the CO2, add the O2, but remove the excess heat.

As for doing the job of giving Mars a breathable atmosphere in a week
(suggested in an earlier article)... the mind boggles at this mass of
gas (of the order of the 4e23 grams mentioned above) blowing out of the
planet's surface, at 7e17 grams per second.  Would there be much of
a surface left after this event?

(It would be a bit like the Genesis account of how the water descended from
the upper firmament (above the vault of heaven) to the planet's surface
in 40 days and 40 nights, only in reverse).

Lastly, I like the idea of "An Avogadro's-constant-squared of molecules",
as in 16*6.023e23 grams of Oxygen!  :-)
--

Malcolm SHUTE.         (The AM Mollusc:   v_@_ )        Disclaimer: all

[Hmmm. Maybe someone can calculate this, but my intuition is that the
 thermal energy present in Venus' atmosphere is isn't so big compared
 to the solar hitting the planet (hitting the top of the atmosphere,
 that is).  Besides, where's a bacterium going to find a heat sink?
 --JoSH]
From: Alexx@world.std.com (Alexx S Kay)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Better Living through DNA Encryption
Keywords: DNA trancription, Public Key Encryption
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:09:43 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

Two comments:

1) No mutations may mean slowed-down evolution, due to less variation.  Of
course, this may be less relevant if we're designing new bodies on our own...

2) In this context, "Secret Key" is interestingly similar to "True Name".  One
can easily envision viruses that could do all sorts of nasty things if they
had it, so any nano-wizard would want very much to protect his own and to
discover those of his enemies.... 1/2 :-)

Alexx

Alexx@world.std.com
"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."
                -- Vice President Dan Quayle
From: erich@dehn.mth.pdx.edu (Erich Boleyn)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Backing up the brain in a Nano-War
Date: 23 Jul 92 01:01:38 GMT


gordie@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Gordon Freedman) writes:

...[other included article deleted]...
>I'll take 'em all (25 year old body, "silicon" VR, backups), using
>whichever fits the task at hand best at the time (or whichever I feel
>like using at the time).
...[list of books liked by Mr. Freeman deleted]...

also, apologies to Evan (?) and the moderator, as I don't have their
recent references on hand.

   I agree with the basic concept which a person named Evan stated a
few articles back...  why is there this incessant thread of just shoring
up the existing body?  Many years ago, when I started to think about the
possibilities of entending the lifespan/rebuilding the body, it seemed
quite evident that for efficiencies sake if nothing else, it would be
easiest (and likely best) to not be too sentimental about keeping with
the current design.  At the time, my ruminations were entirely based on
biological considerations, but it seems to apply when nanotech is thrown
in the picture as well.

   No insult is intended, but the picture of a "25 year old body" seems
a bit ludicrous.  All of the relevant details would take too long to
point out, but in short...  It seems likely that our societal love of
a certain *stage* of the life-cycle of a human body exists mostly
because:

  1) it is a reasonable mixture of the most healthy, strong, dextrous
	that normal humans attain.

  2) the mind is still usually settling down into a pattern of behavior,
	but has had some real experience of most of what is recognized
	by society as being rewarding, and has some confidence and
	self-esteem.

  3) our life-cycle being relatively unchanged (minus medical & nutritional
	benefits that have increased the *average* length and the
	robustness of individuals) on a physical level for too long
	for any records or stories to survive.

   To get the the real point, all of these concepts are based on the
*existing* human life-cycle, which assumes the death at a relatively
young age (when considering the vast amounts possible to learn, even
as accumulated to this date), and the much much earlier near termination
of most peoples very active periods of intense learning and adaption
to the world.

   This is of course a bit of an oversimplification, and there are many
side topics to get into...

   Erich

--
             "I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where it is."
    / --  Erich Stefan Boleyn  -- \       --=> *Mad Genius wanna-be* <=--
   { Honorary Grad. Student (Math) } Internet E-mail: <erich@dehn.mth.pdx.edu>
    \  Portland State University  /      WARNING: INTERESTED AND EXCITABLE
From: dbt@cellar.org
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Terraforming Venus and the Hydrogen Problem
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:29:49 GMT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system

My experience with nuclear physics is very limited, but I do know that it is 
possible to generate hydrogen from other elements in both fusion and fission 
reactions. If this could be done efficiently and safely, much of the carbon 
in the atmosphere of Venus could conceivably be converted to hydrogen and 
other light elements (other than carbon). It could also be done more quickly 
than harvesting iceballs from the Oort cloud.

I also think the chances of finding as massive an iceball as would be 
required to make an Earth-style ocean on Venus are pretty small. Then, does a 
planet really need as much ocean as we have here? Assume an ocean with 
one-tenth the mass of water for Venus. It would make things a lot easier and 
yield more habitable land.

Back to iceballs, has anyone considered that most of the moons of the gas 
giants are mainly ice? Water is quite abundant in the universe. Going to the 
Oort cloud might be the difficult way do get water.

Of course, if we do want to go to the Oort cloud, we can settle for smaller 
iceballs. With a hundred prperly-aimed iceballs of JUST the right size, I bet 
we could start Venus rotating fast enough to generate a Van Allen belt and 
NOT make the crust unstable.

Just a few ideas on planetary engineering from a person with a Lego-level 
appreciation of the subject.

[In matters nuclear, as a rule of thumb, all roads lead to iron; lighter
 elements want to fuse and heavier ones want to fizz.
 --JoSH]
From: vanderwerkend@lonex.rl.af.mil (Dan Vanderwerken)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Nano-War
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:19:56 GMT
Organization: RL

In article <Jul.9.22.03.25.1992.21812@planchet.rutgers.edu> evan@gauss.math.brown.edu (Evan M. Simpson) writes:
>In article <Jun.30.19.34.04.1992.643@planchet.rutgers.edu>, autodesk!peb@uunet.uu.net (Paul Baclace { Scheming Xanalogical Molecules Animate Cyberspace }) writes:
>|>
>|> In article <Jun.17.23.14.48.1992.11820@planchet.rutgers.edu>, vanderwerkend@lonex.rl.af.mil (Dan Vanderwerken) writes:
>|> [...]

I didn't write anything in this posted article.

>|> The main idea here is that *if* backups and restores are relatively
>|> cheap (say, $10k/person for a restore and $1k/person/year for
>|> backups), then this would represent a good defensive technology.
>|>
>|> Brain-body connections are definitely unique, but if you can back up
>|> the whole brain, you are most of the way there to replacing the body
>|> since the brain is the most complex part.
>
>   I have two unrelated (to each other) comments to make here...
>
>   I suspect that I am not alone in regarding mind backups as having only
>one virtue; They are better than nothing. 
>[much stuff about back-ups being better than nothing here deleted]

I still think the mind-body link is going to be virtually inseparable.  Think
of the way hormones affect people?  Will we be able to simulate the way the
body manufactures and uses hormones and other chemicals effectively?  Can
we ensure the simulated person's response would be identical to a real person's
natural response to a situation?

I like the possibilities of using nanotechnology for genetic manipulation
and augmentation best.  

---Dan---

-- 
Dan Van Der Werken          | 
Rome Laboratory/IRDO        | 
Griffiss AFB, NY 13440-5700 | 
(315) 330-3127              |
From: Richard_Hector.sd@xerox.com
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Multiple Experiences
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:09:03 GMT

I've been following the articles posted on this subject.  Some questions pose
themselves.  How are the spinoffs to be fueled?  To have a 'human' experiences
they must have 'human' needs and frailities.  Perhaps, by means of
nanotechnology we will have solved the strains on the infrastructure of the
planet (food, garbage and overcrowding, and on and on).

Among human frailities (maybe not frailities, but advantages) are
procrastination and forgetfulness.  Will the 'spinoffs' procrastinate and be
forgetful if these are qualities of the primary?  How will the primary  ensure
that the 'spinoffs' meet at the appointed venue?  One suggestion: One could
engineer some compulsion in the spinoffs for each  to have to make the
appointment.  How will tampering with them in that way colour the experiences
they gather?  What if spinoffs meet with serious or fatal harm through
misadventure and cannot get to the appointed place?  What if the primary
forgets the appointment?

After reading these notes, I am more and more convinced that my local library
supplies a great enough wealth of 'multiple experiences' for me to sample.  In
addition, I snorkel, hike and collect entry and exit stamps in my passport.
One life (at a time) is quite enough for me.

-- richard

[In one view, the defining characteristic of the human animal is that 
 humans are a substrate for memetic evolution, and that this form of
 "shared experience" makes us what we are now; faster/better technology
 for it would be a difference of degree and not kind.
 For those interested I would reccommend two books, one philosophy and
 one science fiction:  Consciousness Explained, by Daniel Dennett, and
 Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson.
 --JoSH]
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic