This has been discussed a lot lately, with a leak / release (I don't remember which) back in April. This article makes it sound like the official announcement is closer, and still close to the details we heard in April. For a good overview, here is the WP entry.
What this essentially is saying is that NASA is deciding, now, that the booster for the next-gen vehicles will be Shuttle-derived. There'd been talk about using the Delta-4 instead. What this doesn't describe is the capsule itself (the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), which will get figured out next year.
Personally, I thought the Delta-4 approach showed a lot of promise, but I can see the argument for using current technology (engines, boosters, etc.) because of familiarity and the ability to more easily integrate it into the current assembly process. I'd bet that changing over to Delta hardware would require a lot more work at the VAB and on the pad (not that moving to this would be easy).
I'm amazed nobody's said this yet. Use this as a dashboard display in your office. I've had dozens of different displays that are "always on" at one time or another, but putting them in the computer background is useless, generally, 'cause they're always covered up by windows where I'm doing real surfi---er, work.
So make an 11x17" poster, hang it on the wall next to your desk and monitor, and you can put your weather bug, webcam, stock and sports highlights, network load graph, google headlines, and whatever else, over there. Then whenever you want to know what's up in the world, just glance over.
Of course, if you had a Mac, you could just hit F11, but that's another story altogether.
access road along the crawler path to an observation area between pad 39A and 39B for a view of Discovery on the pad
Wow, I didn't know they took people there. When I was there for the first launch I saw, I had an on-base pass for CCAFS, and got lost on my way out. I'd just passed that observation point you cited when I realized, as I approached a serious-looking guard, that I was on the wrong road.
Did I mention this was the John Glenn flight? And that security was a bit high?:)
Anyway, I'm glad to hear that they've returned the ISS center to the tour. You still get to walk through mockups of the unity and lab modules? I couldn't believe how huge those were, compared to the movies I'd seen of Mir...
I've been lucky enough to see two shuttle launches. The first was from the NASA Causeway (one of the northern entrance roads crossing the, er, sound or whatever the body of water is). Unfortunately, they don't open that to the public any longer. However, if you have any contacts on the cape I'd check with them -- it might be open for employees and guests... (dunno).
The second time was a night launch. We'd gotten a nice waterfront table at a fantastic place in Port Canaveral, but I've no idea what it was called. [wait...google maps...tada! Grills Seafood Deck & Tiki Bar - www.visitgrills.com] We got a nice table on the deck near the water, watched the boats come and go (we were in town for a friend's wedding and watched them head out on their honeymoon cruise). Somehow, the four of us managed to hang onto the table for hours (having endless amounts of crabs, shrimp, and assorted drinks). Not long after it got dark, the band played the Star Spangled Banner, and about a minute after that, the shuttle launched.
-sniff- it still brings tears to my eyes.
Anyway, it wasn't nearly as cool as when we were on the causeway (you're actually several miles away, if I recall correctly). But, well....crabs, shrimp, and beer!
I seem to recall that the severed arm shot (it's a complete cutaway with nobody else in the shot) was actually added to ensure that Star Wars got a PG rating. Prior to that, it was being rated G, and Lucas thought that'd be a kiss of death.
At least, that's the way I remember it. Then again, I've spent the last several years turning into an old fart, so maybe someone will correct me.:)
Can you answer one question? Why'd they take the "Do not eat iPod Shuffle" footnote off the website? It was funny and lent Apple a level of...I dunno... fun...that's sometimes missing.:)
When this happens to me (*every* time I go to Home Depot, by the way), I just just walk away purposefully, ignoring the cries of "Sir! Sir! You set off the alarm". I don't make eye contact, I don't speed up or slow down. Just ignore. It feels good when you finally reach that Zen-like state of perfect ignoring.
That's my approach at Best Buy, too, when the Receipt Nazis want to stop me. I figure if they really think I stole something, they can call the cops. If the cops show up before I drive off the lot, good for them, if not, well, Not My Problem.
Whn I was younger, US bills were "silver certificates" -- backed by and redeemable in silver. They were withdrawn from the market, and are no longer legal tender (since 1968). So this kind of widthdrawl of currency from the market has occurred in recent times.
Actually, Silver Certificates (and Gold Certificates too) are still legal tender. They're worth exactly what they say, just in dollars. You can no longer redeem them for precious metal, but if you take it to a bank (and can convince them that it's not fake), then, yes, they'll give you face value for it. (you might need to go to a large bank, come to think of it).
Of course, that'd be stupid. Take it to a coin shop. Or better yet, go to a coin shop, get the appropriate sleeves for them, and take good care of them, and shop around for the best price. Good-condition bills, especially of the more unusual designs, are worth a LOT of money.
Anyone have any information on how these 3d films are different from past attempts at 3d? Do you still wear glasses?
Most likely, you'd still wear glasses, yes. Let's remember the two aspects to 3-D photography: 1) getting 3-D information in the first place (usually with multiple cameras), and 2) delivering that data to the eyes (usually by somehow targeting each eye with a different image).
There are a few other ways to do 2, mostly relying on odd tricks like image "jiggling" (which works, sort of, but isn't that great). Generally, 3-D relies on parallax comparisons made possible by each eye seeing a slightly different image. In order to do that, we need some way to target each eye with a unique image. Some "autostereoscopic" methods use wire or lenticular screens (you see that sometimes in 3-D movie posters). Most systems use glasses. Originally they used red/blue glasses, but that didn't scale well with color films. Then the industry moved on to polarized filters, but that required the viewer hold his head pretty close to straight (if you tilted your head too far to one side, the images would blur and then swap). Polarizing lenses with circular polarization helped minimize some of that. Current "state of the art" uses high-speed LCD shutters in glasses synchronized to the film projector or TV, which shows the right image first (with the left eye blocked by a shutter), then the left image (swapping the shutter to the right eye).
There's also "one lens" systems that rely on an odd optical trick I can't even begin to explain (been a while since college physics), but it has the effect of making objects in motion *in one direction* appear closer to the viewer, while objects at rest or moving the opposite direction appear farther away. This has been used in "3-D Roller Coaster!" videos hawked in mail-order catalogs, and I think was even used to promote a Rose Bowl parade some years back.
Anyway, that's all just the delivery problem. The tougher side is the content problem. Lucas only filmed his movies with a single lens, so there's no parallax information that can be used to provide 3-D images. If the films were *completely* computer generated (like, say, The Incredibles), then it'd just be a matter of rendering it once, then telling the computer "shift the camera left 3 inches" and render again. (has pixar actually done this? it'd be cool.:) )
So with only one image to choose from, how do you "create" depth information? One way that I've seen in the past is to use motion and/or focus artifacts to "guess" at 3-D location in the frame. That is, if something moves in front of another thing, then it's reasonable to assume it should be shown forward in the frame. Or if something's slightly off focus (foreground or background), then you can also assume it's in a different depth plane, and shift it accordingly. I actually saw "Lost In Space" processed with something like this technology, and while it was interesting, it basically sucked.
Why? For one thing, no matter how smart, the extrapolated depth cues are always just guesses. Unless you work the film manually, scene-by-scene (and even frame-by-frame), there will be problems with consistency with the derived depth information. Also, with a two-camera system, each "eye" not only sees slightly different images, but they see images with slightly different *content*. That is, it's not enough to simply shift an X-wing left or right, but one eye needs to see a little something more where the X-Wing was moved out of. Automated processes (in the past) couldn't do this.
Now it's possible that with advances in technology, it's finally possible to consistently guess at object depths, and to fabricate reasonable hidden information. As I said, it's not worked well in the past, but in the past, it's been attempted by hucksters and snake-oil salesmen and sold to gullible third-tier theme park movie houses (I saw the aforementioned Lost in Space about two miles from Walt Disney World,
But admittedly, if you can't trust your personnel to not deliberately transfer data manually between nets, you might as well fire them all.
It's not that most people can't be trusted, but that one or two people certainly can't be trusted, and you don't know who those people are.
I was saying just the other day, there has not been a single major spy (that I'm aware of) who wasn't a Trusted insider. Who had the clerances, who had the accesses, who had the ability to do exactly what you're saying - manually transfer data from one system to another (or to his briefcase).
*That* is why systems are separated, and why there are logical and physical controls enforcing that separation. Not because the staff is untrusted, but because spies are trusted (we just don't know which one is the spy).
Really? I was browsing what I thought was the official OFX site and ran across this:
Since 2000, with the 2.0 specification, OFX has become XML 1.0 compliant and has added 1098, 1099 and W2 tax form download capabilities. (
http://www.ofx.net/ofx/ab_main.asp)
Did it move from SGML to SML with 2.0 (5 years ago), or has it always been "XML" in spirit only?
Major OS releases are not free. Buy a Macintosh now, and it'll have OS X 10.3 on it [...], but if you want 10.4 when it comes out, you should expect to pay the full price.
Generally, yes, but I know that they're giving free/cheap upgrades to iLife '05 for people who bought hardware after a certain date, before the '05 package started to ship. So I wasn't sure if Apple was going to do something like that for Tiger (or if they'd done it for Panther).
I know we don't have a firm release date for Tiger, but I think it's supposed to be out before June or so. Does anyone know what the upgrade policy will be for Mac Minis? That is, if I buy a Mini now, will I have to fork out another $50 or $100 when Tiger ships? (in which case, I'll just wait...)
Google instead is displaying up to five still video images from the indexed television programs, as well as snippets from the show's narrative. The search results also will provide a breakdown on when the program aired and when an episode is scheduled to be repeated. Local programming information will be available for those who provide a ZIP code.
Hey, even that is an great service. Of course, the closed captioning is rarely very good. I never understand how, on a show that was produced weeks before it was aired, the captions are often messed up, or missing key words. Captions (also on DVD subtitles) seem to be shorthand summaries of what was said, when it's usually possible for them to be exact transcripts.
Sometimes it's not a big deal, but sometimes they miss an important point or nuance.
What'd be great, though, is real honest-to-god searching of the audio. I've seen demos where you can literally type in "helicopter," and you'll get hotlinks to the exact times in the video wherever that word was said. It's fscking amazing. Not sure it's a publicly available technology yet, tho...but the capability is definitely out there, and I'm sure we're not the only people playing with this.
When a transaction is complete, the user has an identical copy of the file on his or her computer and may also then disseminate the file to other users connected to the network.
I see what you're saying. I think the intent was probably "may also be automatically disseminated through the same software to other users on the network," or whatever, as we're used to P2P apps doing. But I can see your point, there is a way to interpret it more broadly.
For all the stupid "just ban web browsers, then" comments, read the fscking bill. Also note that it's not just developers, but also people who disseminate P2P software:
(a) Any person or entity that sells, offers for sale, advertises, distributes, disseminates, provides, or otherwise makes available peer-to-peer file sharing software that enables its user to electronically disseminate commercial recordings or audiovisual [ blah blah blah ] and who fails to exercise reasonable care in preventing use of that software to commit an unlawful act [ blah blah blah] As used in this section, "peer-to-peer file sharing software" means software that once installed and launched, enables the user to connect his or her computer to a network of other computers on which the users of these computers have made available recording or audiovisual works for electronic dissemination to other users who are connected to the network. When a transaction is complete, the user has an identical copy of the file on his or her computer and may also then disseminate the file to other users connected to the network.
Web browsers don't fit this definition, unless someone's got a webbrowser that automatically makes its cache available to the world over HTTP, while also immediatly updating google. It's pretty clearly P2P software, as we all understand it to mean.
The big problem I have with this is that there's no easy way for someone writing, say, a 15-line python P2P system, to take that "reasonable care" to restrict copyrighted traffic. And really, it's not just restricting copyrighted material, but restricting copyrighted material where the owner has not said you can share (Dave Matthews concerts are copyrighted, but legal to trade, for example). So software can't simply check for a "copyright" flag in the data stream.
A really quick and dirty approach might be to have a central server with filenames and MD5s of copyrighted material. The app checks a file against that via a simple network call, and if it comes back, it disallows the transfer. (note that this would probably be easy for the user to defeat). It might even be possible to coerce the State of California into creating and maintaining that server.:) Or better yet, the RIAA and MPAA should provide the data. If they want us to not trade their shit, then they should be required to provide a method for us to play nice.
That might be a good comment to make to the legislators (if anyone actually thinks this will go anywhere). Describe the futility of the bill, the impossibility of checking an individual file, and how the only even remotely feasible technical mechanism is a central file/hash listing maintained by the content creators.
(not that I even agree the software authors or distributors should be shouldered with the blame of their users' actions...)
Because of the way the Concorde was designed, it had both a higher takeoff and landing speeds. The engines were also frightfully noisy. Combine the two, and the noise of a Concorde on takeoff or approach is far higher than other commercial jetliners.
Yup. When the Concorde used to land here at Washington Dulles, it was so loud that we even heard it inside a bowling alley, which isn't exactly a sound-dampened studio in itself. We'd never heard any other plane from in there before (this was about a mile directly south of the main runway, right on the flight path). But when the Concorde came in -- wow.
Slashdot Mirror
This has been discussed a lot lately, with a leak / release (I don't remember which) back in April. This article makes it sound like the official announcement is closer, and still close to the details we heard in April. For a good overview, here is the WP entry.
What this essentially is saying is that NASA is deciding, now, that the booster for the next-gen vehicles will be Shuttle-derived. There'd been talk about using the Delta-4 instead. What this doesn't describe is the capsule itself (the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), which will get figured out next year.
Personally, I thought the Delta-4 approach showed a lot of promise, but I can see the argument for using current technology (engines, boosters, etc.) because of familiarity and the ability to more easily integrate it into the current assembly process. I'd bet that changing over to Delta hardware would require a lot more work at the VAB and on the pad (not that moving to this would be easy).
I'm amazed nobody's said this yet. Use this as a dashboard display in your office. I've had dozens of different displays that are "always on" at one time or another, but putting them in the computer background is useless, generally, 'cause they're always covered up by windows where I'm doing real surfi---er, work.
So make an 11x17" poster, hang it on the wall next to your desk and monitor, and you can put your weather bug, webcam, stock and sports highlights, network load graph, google headlines, and whatever else, over there. Then whenever you want to know what's up in the world, just glance over.
Of course, if you had a Mac, you could just hit F11, but that's another story altogether.
access road along the crawler path to an observation area between pad 39A and 39B for a view of Discovery on the pad
:)
Wow, I didn't know they took people there. When I was there for the first launch I saw, I had an on-base pass for CCAFS, and got lost on my way out. I'd just passed that observation point you cited when I realized, as I approached a serious-looking guard, that I was on the wrong road.
Did I mention this was the John Glenn flight? And that security was a bit high?
Anyway, I'm glad to hear that they've returned the ISS center to the tour. You still get to walk through mockups of the unity and lab modules? I couldn't believe how huge those were, compared to the movies I'd seen of Mir...
Just found a picture (shoulda investigated the site first): http://www.visitgrills.com/images/grills/ROCKET2.j pg
If you do get to see it, post a followup with links to pictures, eh?
I've been lucky enough to see two shuttle launches. The first was from the NASA Causeway (one of the northern entrance roads crossing the, er, sound or whatever the body of water is). Unfortunately, they don't open that to the public any longer. However, if you have any contacts on the cape I'd check with them -- it might be open for employees and guests... (dunno).
The second time was a night launch. We'd gotten a nice waterfront table at a fantastic place in Port Canaveral, but I've no idea what it was called. [wait...google maps...tada! Grills Seafood Deck & Tiki Bar - www.visitgrills.com] We got a nice table on the deck near the water, watched the boats come and go (we were in town for a friend's wedding and watched them head out on their honeymoon cruise). Somehow, the four of us managed to hang onto the table for hours (having endless amounts of crabs, shrimp, and assorted drinks). Not long after it got dark, the band played the Star Spangled Banner, and about a minute after that, the shuttle launched.
-sniff- it still brings tears to my eyes.
Anyway, it wasn't nearly as cool as when we were on the causeway (you're actually several miles away, if I recall correctly). But, well....crabs, shrimp, and beer!
That's very nice! You done anything further with it? Is the source available?
/google maps hacking, myself, so I've got a similar interest in direct tile access. :) )
(I've done some terraserver
A severed bloody arm in Star Wars?
:)
I seem to recall that the severed arm shot (it's a complete cutaway with nobody else in the shot) was actually added to ensure that Star Wars got a PG rating. Prior to that, it was being rated G, and Lucas thought that'd be a kiss of death.
At least, that's the way I remember it. Then again, I've spent the last several years turning into an old fart, so maybe someone will correct me.
Check out the cameras
Don't know when the birds got stereo capability, but the first photos were returned in 1960.
I think by "space station" he meant "space station that didn't subsequently drop out of the sky like a brick"
And where exacty are Salyut and Mir now?
Oooh! An Insider!
:)
Can you answer one question? Why'd they take the "Do not eat iPod Shuffle" footnote off the website? It was funny and lent Apple a level of...I dunno... fun...that's sometimes missing.
When this happens to me (*every* time I go to Home Depot, by the way), I just just walk away purposefully, ignoring the cries of "Sir! Sir! You set off the alarm". I don't make eye contact, I don't speed up or slow down. Just ignore. It feels good when you finally reach that Zen-like state of perfect ignoring.
That's my approach at Best Buy, too, when the Receipt Nazis want to stop me. I figure if they really think I stole something, they can call the cops. If the cops show up before I drive off the lot, good for them, if not, well, Not My Problem.
Whn I was younger, US bills were "silver certificates" -- backed by and redeemable in silver. They were withdrawn from the market, and are no longer legal tender (since 1968). So this kind of widthdrawl of currency from the market has occurred in recent times.
Actually, Silver Certificates (and Gold Certificates too) are still legal tender. They're worth exactly what they say, just in dollars. You can no longer redeem them for precious metal, but if you take it to a bank (and can convince them that it's not fake), then, yes, they'll give you face value for it. (you might need to go to a large bank, come to think of it).
Of course, that'd be stupid. Take it to a coin shop. Or better yet, go to a coin shop, get the appropriate sleeves for them, and take good care of them, and shop around for the best price. Good-condition bills, especially of the more unusual designs, are worth a LOT of money.
Anything minted since the last 1800s is still legal.
Actually, anything minted since forever is still legal.
I, for one, would be happy to pay you face value for any of those 1795 coins you found in your grandfather's attic.
They don't have very good resolution for A51. Edwards, however, is pretty clear. Check out the
world's largest compass rose!
Anyone have any information on how these 3d films are different from past attempts at 3d? Do you still wear glasses?
:) )
Most likely, you'd still wear glasses, yes. Let's remember the two aspects to 3-D photography: 1) getting 3-D information in the first place (usually with multiple cameras), and 2) delivering that data to the eyes (usually by somehow targeting each eye with a different image).
There are a few other ways to do 2, mostly relying on odd tricks like image "jiggling" (which works, sort of, but isn't that great). Generally, 3-D relies on parallax comparisons made possible by each eye seeing a slightly different image. In order to do that, we need some way to target each eye with a unique image. Some "autostereoscopic" methods use wire or lenticular screens (you see that sometimes in 3-D movie posters). Most systems use glasses. Originally they used red/blue glasses, but that didn't scale well with color films. Then the industry moved on to polarized filters, but that required the viewer hold his head pretty close to straight (if you tilted your head too far to one side, the images would blur and then swap). Polarizing lenses with circular polarization helped minimize some of that. Current "state of the art" uses high-speed LCD shutters in glasses synchronized to the film projector or TV, which shows the right image first (with the left eye blocked by a shutter), then the left image (swapping the shutter to the right eye).
There's also "one lens" systems that rely on an odd optical trick I can't even begin to explain (been a while since college physics), but it has the effect of making objects in motion *in one direction* appear closer to the viewer, while objects at rest or moving the opposite direction appear farther away. This has been used in "3-D Roller Coaster!" videos hawked in mail-order catalogs, and I think was even used to promote a Rose Bowl parade some years back.
Anyway, that's all just the delivery problem. The tougher side is the content problem. Lucas only filmed his movies with a single lens, so there's no parallax information that can be used to provide 3-D images. If the films were *completely* computer generated (like, say, The Incredibles), then it'd just be a matter of rendering it once, then telling the computer "shift the camera left 3 inches" and render again. (has pixar actually done this? it'd be cool.
So with only one image to choose from, how do you "create" depth information? One way that I've seen in the past is to use motion and/or focus artifacts to "guess" at 3-D location in the frame. That is, if something moves in front of another thing, then it's reasonable to assume it should be shown forward in the frame. Or if something's slightly off focus (foreground or background), then you can also assume it's in a different depth plane, and shift it accordingly. I actually saw "Lost In Space" processed with something like this technology, and while it was interesting, it basically sucked.
Why? For one thing, no matter how smart, the extrapolated depth cues are always just guesses. Unless you work the film manually, scene-by-scene (and even frame-by-frame), there will be problems with consistency with the derived depth information. Also, with a two-camera system, each "eye" not only sees slightly different images, but they see images with slightly different *content*. That is, it's not enough to simply shift an X-wing left or right, but one eye needs to see a little something more where the X-Wing was moved out of. Automated processes (in the past) couldn't do this.
Now it's possible that with advances in technology, it's finally possible to consistently guess at object depths, and to fabricate reasonable hidden information. As I said, it's not worked well in the past, but in the past, it's been attempted by hucksters and snake-oil salesmen and sold to gullible third-tier theme park movie houses (I saw the aforementioned Lost in Space about two miles from Walt Disney World,
Crap. Shoulda checked it out first. I think those are old trailers. Sorry. :(
(still can't see the amazon trailer, either...)
The official site has actual quicktime / WMV trailers in multiple sizes:
http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/main.html
But admittedly, if you can't trust your personnel to not deliberately transfer data manually between nets, you might as well fire them all.
It's not that most people can't be trusted, but that one or two people certainly can't be trusted, and you don't know who those people are.
I was saying just the other day, there has not been a single major spy (that I'm aware of) who wasn't a Trusted insider. Who had the clerances, who had the accesses, who had the ability to do exactly what you're saying - manually transfer data from one system to another (or to his briefcase).
*That* is why systems are separated, and why there are logical and physical controls enforcing that separation. Not because the staff is untrusted, but because spies are trusted (we just don't know which one is the spy).
Really? I was browsing what I thought was the official OFX site and ran across this:
Did it move from SGML to SML with 2.0 (5 years ago), or has it always been "XML" in spirit only?
Major OS releases are not free. Buy a Macintosh now, and it'll have OS X 10.3 on it [...], but if you want 10.4 when it comes out, you should expect to pay the full price.
Generally, yes, but I know that they're giving free/cheap upgrades to iLife '05 for people who bought hardware after a certain date, before the '05 package started to ship. So I wasn't sure if Apple was going to do something like that for Tiger (or if they'd done it for Panther).
I know we don't have a firm release date for Tiger, but I think it's supposed to be out before June or so. Does anyone know what the upgrade policy will be for Mac Minis? That is, if I buy a Mini now, will I have to fork out another $50 or $100 when Tiger ships? (in which case, I'll just wait...)
Google instead is displaying up to five still video images from the indexed television programs, as well as snippets from the show's narrative. The search results also will provide a breakdown on when the program aired and when an episode is scheduled to be repeated. Local programming information will be available for those who provide a ZIP code.
Hey, even that is an great service. Of course, the closed captioning is rarely very good. I never understand how, on a show that was produced weeks before it was aired, the captions are often messed up, or missing key words. Captions (also on DVD subtitles) seem to be shorthand summaries of what was said, when it's usually possible for them to be exact transcripts.
Sometimes it's not a big deal, but sometimes they miss an important point or nuance.
What'd be great, though, is real honest-to-god searching of the audio. I've seen demos where you can literally type in "helicopter," and you'll get hotlinks to the exact times in the video wherever that word was said. It's fscking amazing. Not sure it's a publicly available technology yet, tho...but the capability is definitely out there, and I'm sure we're not the only people playing with this.
Hm.I see what you're saying. I think the intent was probably "may also be automatically disseminated through the same software to other users on the network," or whatever, as we're used to P2P apps doing. But I can see your point, there is a way to interpret it more broadly.
For all the stupid "just ban web browsers, then" comments, read the fscking bill. Also note that it's not just developers, but also people who disseminate P2P software:
:) Or better yet, the RIAA and MPAA should provide the data. If they want us to not trade their shit, then they should be required to provide a method for us to play nice.
(a) Any person or entity that sells, offers for sale, advertises, distributes, disseminates, provides, or otherwise makes available peer-to-peer file sharing software that enables its user to electronically disseminate commercial recordings or audiovisual [ blah blah blah ] and who fails to exercise reasonable care in preventing use of that software to commit an unlawful act [ blah blah blah] As used in this section, "peer-to-peer file sharing software" means software that once installed and launched, enables the user to connect his or her computer to a network of other computers on which the users of these computers have made available recording or audiovisual works for electronic dissemination to other users who are connected to the network. When a transaction is complete, the user has an identical copy of the file on his or her computer and may also then disseminate the file to other users connected to the network.
Web browsers don't fit this definition, unless someone's got a webbrowser that automatically makes its cache available to the world over HTTP, while also immediatly updating google. It's pretty clearly P2P software, as we all understand it to mean.
The big problem I have with this is that there's no easy way for someone writing, say, a 15-line python P2P system, to take that "reasonable care" to restrict copyrighted traffic. And really, it's not just restricting copyrighted material, but restricting copyrighted material where the owner has not said you can share (Dave Matthews concerts are copyrighted, but legal to trade, for example). So software can't simply check for a "copyright" flag in the data stream.
A really quick and dirty approach might be to have a central server with filenames and MD5s of copyrighted material. The app checks a file against that via a simple network call, and if it comes back, it disallows the transfer. (note that this would probably be easy for the user to defeat). It might even be possible to coerce the State of California into creating and maintaining that server.
That might be a good comment to make to the legislators (if anyone actually thinks this will go anywhere). Describe the futility of the bill, the impossibility of checking an individual file, and how the only even remotely feasible technical mechanism is a central file/hash listing maintained by the content creators.
(not that I even agree the software authors or distributors should be shouldered with the blame of their users' actions...)
Because of the way the Concorde was designed, it had both a higher takeoff and landing speeds. The engines were also frightfully noisy. Combine the two, and the noise of a Concorde on takeoff or approach is far higher than other commercial jetliners.
Yup. When the Concorde used to land here at Washington Dulles, it was so loud that we even heard it inside a bowling alley, which isn't exactly a sound-dampened studio in itself. We'd never heard any other plane from in there before (this was about a mile directly south of the main runway, right on the flight path). But when the Concorde came in -- wow.