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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Purdue University innovators have created technology aimed at replacing Morse code with colored “digital characters” to modernize optical storage. They are confident the advancement will help with the explosion of remote data storage during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
[...] Rather than using the traditional dots and dashes as commonly used in these technologies, the Purdue innovators encode information in the angular position of tiny antennas, allowing them to store more data per unit area.
"The storage capacity greatly increases because it is only defined by the resolution of the sensor by which you can determine the angular positions of antennas," said Alexander Kildishev, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering in Purdue's College of Engineering. "We map the antenna angles into colors, and the colors are decoded."
[...]This new development not only allows for more information to be stored but also increases the readout rate.
"You can put four sensors nearby, and each sensor would read its own polarization of light," Kildishev said. "This helps increase the speed of readout of information compared to the use of a single sensor with dots and dashes."
Future applications for this technology include security tagging and cryptography. To continue developing these capabilities, the team is looking to partner with interested parties in the industry.
Journal Reference:
Maowen Song, Di Wang, Zhaxylyk A. Kudyshev, et al. Enabling Optical Steganography, Data Storage, and Encryption with Plasmonic Colors, Laser & Photonics Reviews (DOI: 10.1002/lpor.202000343)
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday February 04 2021, @03:07PM (8 children)
There are (at present) 89 genders (last I checked). A unique color could be assigned to each gender. But this would require a bit of organization to track properly. So I propose a new Federal Department of Gender.
The new FDG would get a generous budget and staff to standardize the recognized gender codes and colors. The codes "M" and "F" would be grandfathered in, with colors "sky blue" and "light pink" respectively. Other gender codes would be four character alphanumeric codes, to reserve sufficient address space for future gender code expansion. Colors would be specified in conventional color notation used in CSS.
All federal and state forms would use the new FDG gender codes (and colors where appropriate). Software vendors would have one year to adapt their software to support the new codes in time for their use on government forms, especially IRS forms.
The FDG could study which subsets of genders could be grouped together to determine the smallest number of restrooms that can accommodate all of the 89 genders. (It turns out to be 11 restrooms.)
This important function of the FDG would result in economic efficiencies. After all, we don't want to mandate that businesses build 89 different restrooms if it can be mathematically shown that only 11 restrooms are required to accommodate all 89 genders. This saves economic resources in building design and construction.
Beyond this new beginning, other new Federal measures and policies will be announced in due time as the administration gets to attending to this and other similarly important matters.
If a lazy person with no education can cross the border and take your job, we need to upgrade your job skills.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday February 04 2021, @04:55PM (5 children)
No. You could, with reasonable doubt, claim that there were 89 sexes. I'd want to know your definition, but it wouldn't be obviously wrong. Claiming that there are 89 genders is obviously wrong. Gender is a social construct, and most people don't recognize more than 5 of them (i.e. male, female, neuter, inanimate, other.) Individuals might extend that a little bit to deal with intersex people who demand to be as something else, but it requires experience to form a social category outside the REALLY basic ones. 10 wouldn't be obviously wrong in principle, but most people wouldn't recognize anything outside the five I listed. (Note that even known female dogs tend to be male in gender, despite their sex, and cats tend to be female.)
FWIW, paramecium have been reported to have 19 sexes. But that's not with the standard definition.
You are using the term gender where you should be using the term sex. If you said sex, I'd recognize it as a joke, rather than something that was just wrong. I, personally, wouldn't find it very funny, but I accept that there are those that would. Saying gender ruins the joke, and make it just wrong.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday February 04 2021, @05:01PM
There is an Australian language with 8 genders.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 04 2021, @08:25PM (2 children)
I heard 89 genders from some SJW's online about a year and a half ago. Maybe closer to two years.
So it MUST be true.
If a lazy person with no education can cross the border and take your job, we need to upgrade your job skills.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2021, @03:29AM (1 child)
With genders like Boeing AH-64 I'm surprised there are only 89.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2021, @05:51AM
You all really got to get a new joke. A whole world of possibilities to chose from and it always has to be that an attack helicopter is a gender/sex. Oh well. At least you are still fun to laugh at given the futility of using your brain for something productive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2021, @03:41AM
No it isn't [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2021, @10:09PM (1 child)
Whoop, there's one more! And hey, I just made up another. I'd better go report them to the Federal Agency of Gender.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2021, @04:21AM
You sound like a woman.