Hey,

I've used dropbox. I'm not an expert but this is how it seems to work: Dropbox syncs every change in any direction between your online dropbox and a localy stored dropbox. Synchronization occurs both ways as long as a local dropbox-client is installed and connected to your dropbox account. Your uploaded dropbox data is available online at any time without the need to install a dropbox client.

Or more elaborately: - You install a dropbox client on a computer. You make a new dropbox account, or sign in on an existing dropbox account. Usually dropbox automatically makes a local dropbox directory that will be used as your local copy of your dropbox, but you should be able to change your preferences and define a directory to use as your "dropbox" directory yourself.

• All files and folders in your local dropbox directory get uploaded to dropbox and stored online as long as your dropbox client is connected to your dropbox account. Basically your local dropbox directory and your online dropbox get synchronized both ways as long as your local dropbox client program is running and connected to with your dropbox account.
• Once you have your dropbox folder synced with your online dropbox, you can log in on the dropbox site from any computer connected to the internet, and browse through your dropbox online without the need to install a dropbox client. If you want to use a file, you can simply download it.
• If you install dropbox client on multiple computers and connect them to the same dropbox account, they all get synced with each other.
• Synchronization of your dropbox happens in all directions: - Changes on any computer with a dropbox client connected to your dropbox account are persisted to your online dropbox as well as any other computers with a dropbox client connected to your dropbox account.
• Changes anywhere in your online dropbox are persisted to any computer  with a dropbox client connected to your dropbox account.
• If a computer has a dropbox client installed but isn't connected with your dropbox account when changes are made elsewhere (online, or on another computer connected to your dropbox account), all changes are persisted as soon as you re-connect with your dropbox.
• If you make changes to your local dropbox directory on a computer that has dropbox client installed but isn't connected with your dropbox when you apply the changes , all changes will still be persisted to your online dropbox and any connected dropbox clients as soon as you re-connect this computer with your dropbox again.

Great video! nice music too :D

haha cool :D thats great indeed! I do really need to convince my gf to teach me some chords... more then once, so i can actually remember them haha

hahaha good one!

Well various compression methods might take a bit longer or shorter to safe, but overall the difference should be neglectable compared to the rendering time of an average bryce scene.

I still think its stupid we use fission based on uranium.. Thorium holds SO many benefits compared to uranium that its just rediculous that we dont use it.. There's twice as much of it in the ground (cheaper fuel), you can  turn it into a liquid fuel (much easier to keep cool or distribute in a controlled fashion), if you shut a thorium reactor down you dont have to keep cooling some big radioactive core to prevent it from melting or exploding, u can actually use up ALL the fuel cuz its easy to separate the waste from the remaining fuel (unlike uranium fuel rods which become an inefficient mix of uranium and waste material far before all uranium is actually used), the radioactive waste produced is less dangerous and decays to harmless materials much faster, its possible to separate various sections of a thorium reactor much better then those of a uranium reactor as well (which opens up possibilities for better safety).

Only downside is that thorium reactors dont create weapons-grade radioactive substances... Which is why we've historically been focussed on uranium instead.

hehe i can get carried away ^^ sorry bryster :P

I think as a species we're hardly on the most efficient path...

Its strange how the fastest way to get new technology developed is by convincing the military that they can benefit from the end-result...

Its also quite illogical that the powers taht be dont notice or dont care that the current economic structure favors exponential profit growth over innovation and sustainability... The value of profit is entirely imaginary... The only thing that gives profit any value is the knowledge that you're more or less expected to make a profit in before others will even start to consider evaluating your performance at whatever it is you're doing.

Finally, the powers that be are too pressured by this flawed economic system... This results in the exploration of rediculously inefficient and possibly futile paths for future technological development.

Take fusion research for example:

Imagine that we as a species, starting right now, spend half a century working on the development of efficient fusion reactors. Imagine we invest some of the smartest minds on the planet for half a century into creating a power source of unimaginable capacity. A powersource neccesary to solve our energy consumption problems. A powersource that is simply required if we wish to elevate mankind to a star faring civilization... Sounds like a marvellous plan to help mankind forward right?

Then snap back to reality, and realize we have already spent more then half a century trying to develop this technology, imagine the billions upon billions we have invested in this.

The focus of most of this expense? Fusion reactors of toroid design.

How is this a problem you ask? Well, we already know now for half a century that the electric field generated in this toroid design is actually an extremely inefficient means of compacting matter to the densities required to create fusion. It takes tremendous amounts of energy to create fusion with a toroidal reactor design, because the electric fields meant to compress the fuel to the point of nuclear fusion spend most of their energy doing anything but compressing the fusion fuel.

Despite this knowledge we have spent are billions and billions worth of research on this known inherently inefficient design. So now that we have struggled for half a century to make this flawed design work, you would expect us to decide: 

"hey.. lets hold on for a minute, stop doing what we're doing and re-think this... Lets spend our time finding other more efficient means of compressing this fusion fuel."

**
**

Wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong...

We make up timelines that span across decades costing multiples of the billions already spent so far to build devices we already know wont work. Authorities try to justify the expense by claiming the production of this insufficient hardware is required as an intermediary stage towards building the final actually working fusion reactors. Authorities reason that too much money has already been spent on this type of reactors to stop trying to make them work.

Why do we do this? Well, we already invested so much, that we "cannot stop now". If we would stop, the money we spent would be "lost". But if we spend even more money.. it "might eventually become profitable".

But 60 years into the future, the energy crisis will be solved right?

Wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong...

In 60 years we'll have huge bulky powerhungry monsters that require enormous amounts of energy to even get them up and running. Sure, once they'll run they'll produce a lot of energy, but they'll be big, bulky, and they'll still be inherently highly inefficient.

They'll be too large and too power-hungry to be of much use in early interstellar space travel. We still wont be any closer to having an efficiënt means of creating energy through fusion. We'll just have created the worlds most expensive ugly duckling. We'll still be earthbound, energy will still be very costly, and we'll have no choise but to utilize this futile piece of technology for decades to come in order to break even on our investments.

The same principles apply elsewhere:

New cheaper and/or more effective medicines, genetically modified crop, novel ways to collect water in deserts and convert them to farmland, alternative energy sources, alternative fuels, cross-disciplinary integration of various sciences, thoriumbased fission versus uraniumbased fission, international politics, humanitarian aid, etc. etc.

I hope we realize soon that progress is worth more then profit...

Well for that meteorite in peru, its prettty easy to find out if it was the cause for the sickness.. just check for the cause in the victims, and then check the meteorite for signs of the cause as well. If the cause of the desease cannot be found on the meteorite, the meteorite is clearly not the cause.

By the way, did you know there is a theory that life might have originated in space and been brought to earth by asteroids? Its called panspermia.

A more clear color-coded css (for some reason i cant edit the old one)

/* make sure the container, map, triggers and pop-ups are block level elements /
.map, .map img, .map .trigger, .map .pop-up {
  display: block;
}
/ make sure pop-ups will be able to overflow their container elements /
.map, .map img, .map .trigger {
  overflow: visible;
}
/ makes the absolutely positioned triggers position themselves relative to the top-left corner of .map /
.map {
  position: relative;
}
/ styling the map /
.map img {
  position: relative;
  width: 960px;
  height: 480px;
}
/ size of trigger and pop-up-container /
.map .trigger, .map .pop-up-container {
  width: 30px;
  height: 30px;
}
/ triggers need to be placed precisely, relative to the map, easiest way to do this is by using absolute positioning.
Also give them a red border and fancy rounded corners in supporting browsers /
.map .trigger {
  position: absolute;
  border: 2px solid red;
  -webkit-border-radius: 15px;
  -moz-border-radius: 15px;
  border-radius: 15px;
  -moz-background-clip: padding;
  -webkit-background-clip: padding-box;
  background-clip: padding-box;
}
/ makes the absolutely positioned pop-ups position themselves relative to the top-left corner of .pop-up-container /
.map .pop-up-container {
  position: relative;
}
/ pop-ups start out invisible /
.map .trigger .pop-up-container {
  display: none;
}
/ pop-ups turn visible if the mouse moves over the trigger /
.map .trigger:hover .pop-up-container {
  display: block;
}
/ position pop-up's bottom left corner relative to the top-left pixel of the .pop-up-container.
Also give them a nice dropshadow in supporting browsers /
.map .pop-up {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: -15px;
  left: 15px;
  background-color: #fff;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0px 0px 6px #000;
  -moz-box-shadow: 0px 0px 6px #000;
  box-shadow: 0px 0px 6px #000;
}
/ Some basic typographic styling */
h2, p {
  font-family: sans-serif;
  color: #444;
  margin-bottom: 14px;
}
h2 {
  font-weight: bold;
  font-size: 18px;
  line-height: 24px;
}
p {
  font-weight: normal;
  font-size: 14px;
  line-height: 20px;
}

**Basically what happens is this:
**-  The triggers are absolutely positioned over the image so you can easily place them anywhere you want.

•  Once the mouse moves over a trigger object, the pop-up element is made visible.
•  The pop-up is positioned relative to the trigger so you can easily make it look pretty.

**Some side notes:
**-  Absolutely positioned elements position themselves relative to the top-left corner of the 1st parent element that is relatively positioned. Thats why there is a pop-up container of the same size of the trigger around the actual pop-up.

•  Absolutely positioned elements position break the flow of your document. Parent elements dont size to accomodate their absolutely positioned child elements. The child elements overflow their parent instead.
•  u can use the node-1 and node-2 classes to position each trigger individually
•  u can add as many triggers as you want, but try to make them far apart that you dont accidentally float off of one. 

**Other ideas:
**You could also use javascript mouse-over events to activate pop-up visibility instead of pure css hovers. This would also allow you some more fancy things like keeping the pop-up visible for a while longer after the mouse leaves the trigger, or keeping the pop-up visible while the mouse is positioned over the pop-up. Or maybe even use an event on an entirely other object  to make a pop-up go away.

/* make sure the container, map, triggers and pop-ups are block level elements /
.map, .map img, .map .trigger, .map .pop-up {
  display: block;
}
/ make sure pop-ups will be able to overflow their container elements /
.map, .map img, .map .trigger {
  overflow: visible;
}
/ makes the absolutely positioned triggers position themselves relative to the top-left corner of .map /
.map {
  position: relative;
}
/ styling the map /
.map img {
  position: relative;
  width: 960px;
  height: 480px;
}
/ size of trigger and pop-up-container /
.map .trigger, .map .pop-up-container {
  width: 30px;
  height: 30px;
}
/ triggers need to be placed precisely, relative to the map, easiest way to do this is by using absolute positioning.
Also give them a red border and fancy rounded corners in supporting browsers /
.map .trigger {
  position: absolute;
  border: 2px solid red;
  -webkit-border-radius: 15px;
  -moz-border-radius: 15px;
  border-radius: 15px;
  -moz-background-clip: padding; -webkit-background-clip: padding-box; background-clip: padding-box;
}
/ makes the absolutely positioned pop-ups position themselves relative to the top-left corner of .pop-up-container /
.map .pop-up-container {
  position: relative;
}
/ pop-ups start out invisible /
.map .trigger .pop-up-container {
  display: none;
}
/ pop-ups turn visible if the mouse moves over the trigger /
.map .trigger:hover .pop-up-container {
  display: block;
}
/ position pop-up's bottom left corner relative to the top-left pixel of the .pop-up-container.
Also give them a nice dropshadow in supporting browsers /
.map .pop-up {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: -15px;
  left: 15px;
  background-color: #fff;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0px 0px 6px #000;
  -moz-box-shadow: 0px 0px 6px #000;
  box-shadow: 0px 0px 6px #000;
}
/ Some basic typographic styling */
h2, p {
  font-family: sans-serif;
  color: #444;
  margin-bottom: 14px;
}
h2 {
  font-weight: bold;
  font-size: 18px;
  line-height: 24px;
}
p {
  font-weight: normal;
  font-size: 14px;
  line-height: 20px;
}

Well, if you just want to make popups on mouseover on certain coordinates of your 3d render.. you could use css and/or javascript for that.

a quick example would be something like this:

       

       

           

               

Some title

               

Some information

           

       

   

   

       

           

               

Some other title

               

Some other information

           

       

   

That would be the markup with:

•  a container (.map).
•  the image (img).
•  trigger elements (the ones that will respond to mouseover)
•  the popup-container (for easier positioning of the pop-up)
•  the pop-up (the actual popup itself)
•  Some content (the h2 and p tags)

css to follow.. 

Well, black holes by their nature do actually evaporate..

To explain why, i have to first explain two concepts that are the foundation of evaporating black holes. 

**The first concept that space/time has a limited entropy:
**Space-time is in some ways a bit like the harddrive in your computer. It can only store information at a certain density, thus its total storage capacity of your harddrive is limited by the storage area of your harddrive. The limited density and limited volume create a fixed maximum amount of entropy for your harddrive. A fixed capacity to store information.

Similarly only a limited amount of information (matter in this case) can be stored in a limited amount of space/time. Space/time by its very nature has this limit.

**The second concept is that a black hole does, in some sense, really rip a hole in space-time:
**Imagine space time as a rubber sheet. If nothing is put on top of the rubber sheet, it will be completely level and flat. Now if we put an object on it, the weight of the object bends the rubber sheet, creating a dent. The heavier the object, the deeper the dent.

Now imagine travel across the surface of the rubber sheet. The closer you get to the object, the steeper the slope will be as the sheet curves more and more to reach the deepest depths of the dent. The deeper the dent, the steeper this slope will get. A black hole does the same thing with space-time. 

Now imagine we put an object on the rubber sheet so compact and heavy, that the steepest part of the slope makes a 90 degree angle away from what would otherwise have been the level surface of the dent-less sheet. You could continue across a 90 degree slope as deep down the dent as you want, but you will never reach the other side or even the center of the dent. Effectively the sheet has a hole inside it.

The same happens in the black hole. Space-time is bent so strongly that a hole is ripped inside it. Once you go beyond the schwarzschild radius -  the point beyond which even light cannot escape its gravitational pull - there is actually no space/time as we know it inside it.

**Combining both concepts:
**When we combine the concept of limited information capacity of space-time with the hole in space-time, we can ask the following question:

If there is no space-time inside the black hole, if the black hole is really a hole in space-time. Then where is the information stored about the mass that fell into it?

This is where things get interesting... As there is no space-time inside the black hole, there is only one place where the information about the mass falling into the black hole can be described: *on the very edge of space time, on the surface of the black-hole. *

This is where the reason for evaporating black holes is found. Remember, space-time has a maximum entropy. The black hole compacts matter to its densest state, the maximum entropy of its volume. The black hole's volume can only contain a certain maximum density of matter. But the information about this matter isn't stored inside the black hole (because thats where space-time seizes to exist), but instead is stored on its surface!

We can view the black hole as a sphere, because that is the most efficient shape for matter to take. This is why all large enough concentrations of mass assume a spherical shape. The volume of any sphere is larger then its surface. Thus the entropy of the blackhole's volume is larger then the entropy of its surface.

As a result, not all of the mass of the black hole can be described on its surface! Consequently, the matter cannot be contained within the black hole and ends up being radiated back out right at the edge of the schwarzschild radius in the form of energy. This radiation is known as Hawking radiation, named after the famous Stephen Hawking who thought up the entire concept explained here.

As the matter gets radiated back out in the form of energy, the black hole's mass reduces, its radius schrinks, with its radius its surface area shrinks, which in turn means that more energy will get radiated back out, etc. etc. untill the black hole is evaporated.

The only way a black hole can stay alive is by sucking in enough matter to compensate for the energy it radiates away. If it doesnt, it will shrink and eventually evaporate.

The particles used in the LHC are so very small, that they can only create really tiny, if any black holes. Even if a super-tiny black hole is created in the LHC, it will be so very small, and its gravitational pull so very weak, that it can only pull in small sub-atomic particles.

While there are huge amounts of subatomic particles in a small part of space from our human perspective, the subatomic sized black hole itself would be so small, that relative to its size, other particles are actually very far away.

The gravitational pull of the black hole might be huge relative to its size, but its size will be so tiny and other subatomic particles coming close enough to get caught by the gravitational pull of the black hole would be very few and far apart.

As a result the micro black-hole's mass will simply evaporate away in the form of hawking radiation before it can pull in enough matter to compensate that loss of mass, let alone for it to grow consistently.

They do create antimatter in CERN.. they also managed to contain it for record times. Its just that the quantities they make arent dangerous. Its literally generated with only a few subatomic partilces at a time. Not enough to do any harm.

There have also been worries about blackholes, but the same thing applies there.. if any such black holes even can be created at the LHC, they'd be so incredibly tiny that they would evaporate before they could do harm.