There was a Scientific American podcast about the demise of the banana on April 23, 2008. It was interesting--they actually went down to South America and took a tour of a banana farm. There are some photos on the site as well.
The police and FBI don't like to talk about it, but there is a program where if they input a digital photo of someone, even a poor quality one, the computer will compare it against the database of digital photos taken by the Department of Motor Vehicles and spit out the six closest matches.
These system rely on facial characteristics like eye-nose-mouth ratio, hairlines, etc so as long as the computer can accurately calculate the centers of these areas, it works. The FBI doesn't need to talk about these programs. There are many papers published by the IEEE on face recognition, just search on IEEE Xplore (assuming you're an IEEE member). You are correct in that most algorithms require a straight-on view though.
I know a student at my school who is working on his Master's degree in Computer Engineering. He's investigating face derotation. That's taking an image of a person's face and manipulating it into a straight-on view.
Don't forget the NSF's Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. This contest is to encourage people to communicate science using images and media. Check out the contest winners from the past few years.
They deleted whole, complete and well researched articles on the Warcraft universe because it wasn't "encyclopedic". Also a lot of Star Wars stuff has been deleted too. Basically deletionists view with bad eyes everything that is fiction related, and dismiss it.
The major problem with these types of articles is that they consist of almost entirely in-game information with no connection to the real world, such as detailed character or location histories. This information is more appropriate for a fan wiki dedicated to the topic.
Articles should be written such that they contain useful and interesting information for people who know nothing about the subject. Articles substantially comprised of fictional lore are not useful and frankly quite boring to anyone but those who are already knowledgeable about the topic.
It's not the cheapest way to hook up to the internet, but my combination all-you-can-talk phone, basic television, and 20/5 internet is $105/year (and that's not an introductory rate), so it's not bad.
Wait... what the hell? You pay less than $10 a month for internet access? I don't believe you.
I am a Computer Engineering student graduating this spring and I have spent many hours in the library. Many books I use are available electronically but I prefer to have the actual paper version because I find them easier to read and easier to search through. Also they do not have the multitude of distractions (IM, games, websites) that are on my laptop, which is very nice when I'm studying.
I like going to the library just to browse and to see what I can find. I would be quite sad if libraries were to disappear.
When I spoke with the USPTO about a position after graduating they mentioned that working there kills your marketability if you decide to get back into engineering later on. The pay may be good, but I decided it wasn't worth sacrificing my ability to work in industry.
I just read a chapter of the book Guns, Germs and Steel talking about innovation and invention. The author, Jared Diamond, makes the same point: Necessity is not usually the mother of invention; rather, invention is the mother of necessity.
For example, James Watt is usually credited with inventing the steam engine in 1769, but he wasn't inspired by watching steam rise from a teakettle's spout as the story goes. Watt actually based his work off of another steam engine created by Thomas Newcomen. There was also Tomas Savery and Denis Papin's engine design even before Newcomen.
Another good example is Thomas Edison's phonograph. He originally intended it for dictation and other office use, but eventually admitted (twenty years after its invention) that it's best use was for recording music.
Memory usage is terrible, I find the UI sluggish, render times are far from ideal and the whole thing just feels... not what it was. Is this the new audiophile meme? Have you done side-by-side comparisons to make sure that you're not just looking back with rose-tinted glasses?
There are five generations of languages as defined by Aho, Lam, Sethi and Ullman in Compilers: Principles, Techniques & Tools (also known as the Dragon Book):
Machine code
Assembly languages
Higher-level languages (Fortran, Cobol, Lisp, C, C++, C#, Java)
Application-specific languages (SQL, Postscript)
Logic- and constraint-based languages (Prolog)
Scripting languages fall into the third generation. The distinction between scripting languages and other languages is that they are interpreted rather than compiled and that they provide many higher level constructs.
Speaking of IRC, there's an administrator only channel (#wikipedia-en-admins). Admins regularly discuss their actions on Wikipedia there, including bans. Why is this any different than the so-called "secret" mailing list?
I smell a Slashdot Poll... is it flash-, jump-, pen-, thumb-, USB-, or memory-? Is it a drive, disk, key or stick?
I think "flash drive" is the most descriptive and appropriate answer. Jump-, pen- and thumb- are names that companies came up with to differentiate their brand. USB- and memory- are too generic. It's not a disk or key, and "flash stick" just sounds weird.
"And are they getting married in my bedroom?" asked Ron furiously. "No! So why in the name of Merlin's saggy left—" (p. 92, U.S. ed.)
"The fire's lit, but the cauldron's empty," as Ivor Dillonsby put it to me, or, in Enid Smeek's slightly earthier phrase, "She's nutty as squirrel poo." (p. 355)
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" (p. 736)
The book is full of death left and right, with these great one-liners sprinkled throughout.
I have owned the Dell laptop I am currently typing on since July 2003 (it just went out of warranty). Despite a few mishaps, like spilling an entire grape Sobe on the keyboard, everything still works fine. It has 512MB RAM and a 1.3GHz Pentium M, and still performs quite well. The only things I'd appreciate is a bigger hard drive and maybe a better video card.
That said, several of my friends' hard drives have worn out, and I'm expecting something to go soon. About those backups I've been planning on doing....
Slashdot Mirror
It's that darn metric system again. My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.
Let's see... Google calculator tells me that 40 rods to the hogshead works out to about 0.00084 kilometers per liter, or 0.00198 miles per gallon.
I blame you for global warming.
Stephan
I don't mean to hijack your comment but links would have been useful.There was a Scientific American podcast about the demise of the banana on April 23, 2008. It was interesting--they actually went down to South America and took a tour of a banana farm. There are some photos on the site as well.
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=7BA7726C-EBE6-29DB-B21F7FF464B293E9
These system rely on facial characteristics like eye-nose-mouth ratio, hairlines, etc so as long as the computer can accurately calculate the centers of these areas, it works. The FBI doesn't need to talk about these programs. There are many papers published by the IEEE on face recognition, just search on IEEE Xplore (assuming you're an IEEE member). You are correct in that most algorithms require a straight-on view though.
I know a student at my school who is working on his Master's degree in Computer Engineering. He's investigating face derotation. That's taking an image of a person's face and manipulating it into a straight-on view.
Don't forget the NSF's Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. This contest is to encourage people to communicate science using images and media. Check out the contest winners from the past few years.
No. Five years ago some Americans were in favor of the war, just as some are now. Very few were ever interested in boycotting France.
"Bob's Deli, we put stuff on your bread. Bob's Deli, our food contains no lead."
Articles should be written such that they contain useful and interesting information for people who know nothing about the subject. Articles substantially comprised of fictional lore are not useful and frankly quite boring to anyone but those who are already knowledgeable about the topic.
Wait... what the hell? You pay less than $10 a month for internet access? I don't believe you.
I am a Computer Engineering student graduating this spring and I have spent many hours in the library. Many books I use are available electronically but I prefer to have the actual paper version because I find them easier to read and easier to search through. Also they do not have the multitude of distractions (IM, games, websites) that are on my laptop, which is very nice when I'm studying.
I like going to the library just to browse and to see what I can find. I would be quite sad if libraries were to disappear.
- Degree: $Min - $Max, $Median
- Electrical Engineering BS: $30000 - $65000, $52000
- Computer Engineering BS: $52000 - $75500, $57000
- Computer Science BS: $35000 - $85000, $55000
This is for all graduates, regardless of location. Many graduates end up in New York state however.When I spoke with the USPTO about a position after graduating they mentioned that working there kills your marketability if you decide to get back into engineering later on. The pay may be good, but I decided it wasn't worth sacrificing my ability to work in industry.
I just read a chapter of the book Guns, Germs and Steel talking about innovation and invention. The author, Jared Diamond, makes the same point: Necessity is not usually the mother of invention; rather, invention is the mother of necessity.
For example, James Watt is usually credited with inventing the steam engine in 1769, but he wasn't inspired by watching steam rise from a teakettle's spout as the story goes. Watt actually based his work off of another steam engine created by Thomas Newcomen. There was also Tomas Savery and Denis Papin's engine design even before Newcomen.
Another good example is Thomas Edison's phonograph. He originally intended it for dictation and other office use, but eventually admitted (twenty years after its invention) that it's best use was for recording music.
WY-BEA175-E American Samoa is only at $3,600! Where's the bid button? I'm not exactly sure what I'd do with a license, but I know I want one!
- Machine code
- Assembly languages
- Higher-level languages (Fortran, Cobol, Lisp, C, C++, C#, Java)
- Application-specific languages (SQL, Postscript)
- Logic- and constraint-based languages (Prolog)
Scripting languages fall into the third generation. The distinction between scripting languages and other languages is that they are interpreted rather than compiled and that they provide many higher level constructs.Speaking of IRC, there's an administrator only channel (#wikipedia-en-admins). Admins regularly discuss their actions on Wikipedia there, including bans. Why is this any different than the so-called "secret" mailing list?
I smell a Slashdot Poll... is it flash-, jump-, pen-, thumb-, USB-, or memory-? Is it a drive, disk, key or stick?
I think "flash drive" is the most descriptive and appropriate answer. Jump-, pen- and thumb- are names that companies came up with to differentiate their brand. USB- and memory- are too generic. It's not a disk or key, and "flash stick" just sounds weird.
"Me fail English? That's unpossible!" --Ralph Wiggum
Wouldn't a better word for "containerization" be "encapsulation"?
They're "...nutty as squirrel poo!"
Just one word, perhaps, explains why other countries didn't send wizards: appeasement. Similarities to WWII?
I have owned the Dell laptop I am currently typing on since July 2003 (it just went out of warranty). Despite a few mishaps, like spilling an entire grape Sobe on the keyboard, everything still works fine. It has 512MB RAM and a 1.3GHz Pentium M, and still performs quite well. The only things I'd appreciate is a bigger hard drive and maybe a better video card.
That said, several of my friends' hard drives have worn out, and I'm expecting something to go soon. About those backups I've been planning on doing....