sive and hokey viewing equipment. Some of the 3-D images also had the drawback of making you nauseous while you looked at them.
Arvin Papadopoulous, Inc., a tiny outfit from the high-tech wilderness of Boise, Idaho, has rendered all these 3-D efforts obsolete. The co
mpany is about to market a new kind of ink-jet printer that produces 4-D images on glossy paper. With this printing breakthrough, you can view
all
sides (including the inside) of every object in a picture. And you can also see the "fourth dimension," which is time. You can see the images move! And you don't even have to wear goggles!
This new printer allows you to vary the printing process so that the images appear to move in real time, accelerated time, or even slow motion. Ironically (and this example
really
demonstrates that life is a series of technological trade-offs), with this process, it is difficult to print an image that appears to be "still."
Admittedly, it takes a while to accustom your eyes to the Papadopoulous system. But once you "get it," you will be able to instantly see the full glory of any other picture of this kind. The image shown above (it appears to be three images, but really isn't) was prepared using a beta version of the 4-D printer. To view it, position y
our eyes about 80 centimeters from the paper and hold the page at a slight angle. Do not blink (that's important). If this is the first Papadopoulous image you have seen, it will likely take approximately 4000-4500 seconds before you see the picture for what it is.
Continuous Bombardment
Our recent story about e-junkmail generated numerous letters from readers who want to join the fight against e-spam. But e-junkmail perpetrators often disguise their true addresses by forging the message headers. Even if you find them, e-junkmailers are elusive. They move quickly (and often) from one Internet service provider (ISP) to another. What's needed is a way to find and track them as you lay down a stream of deadly fire to wipe them out. We speak metaphorically, of course.
An elegant program called Firehose (see the text box) does exactly that. Like e-junkmailers themselves, Firehose is relentless and inhuman. Some of you may ask whether this approach is overkill, in that the
mail Firehose generates does itself soak up enormous bandwidth. Perhaps. But in this war to eliminate e-junkmail, it may be necessary to destroy the global village in order to save it.
New Product: Firehose
Firehose is a simple Java applet. It's free, fun, and satisfying to use. The noble men and women (and skilled children) of the Department of Public Works maintain a list of the e-junkmailers' true addresses that is updated daily. Firehose sends a continuous stream of messages to every junkmailer who has sent e-junkmail to you and who is on the DPW's list.
The E-junkmailers' e-junkmail is jujistuistically turned back against them -- and then some. The evil e-junkmail creatures cannot for long avoid Firehose's mighty stream.
Marc Abrahams is the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can contact him by sending e-mail to
marca@improb.com
.
Advances and Retreats in Computing
