It warps you to another image of the Memorial from a similar angle. From this point, you can warp to four images.
It might just be because it's late, but it sure blew my mind. (Especially if it's computer-generated linking.)
It is. They are doing this with user-supplied photographs worldwide.
Google must have an incredible amount of spare processing power.
My mind has recovered from being blown when first discovering this
a couple of months ago, but I'm still fairly impressed.
The first that I had heard about this was from a NASA scientist following the Columbia accident.
"The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint briefing slides instead of technical papers as an
illustration of the problematic methods of technical communication at NASA."
-- Columbia Accident Investigation Board report, Vol.1, page 191
There's a scary example on that page too, look it up:
The vaguely quantitative words "significant" and
"significantly" are used 5 times on this slide, with de facto
meanings ranging from "detectable in largely irrelevant
calibration case study" to "an amount of damage so that
everyone dies" to "a difference of 640-fold." None of
these 5 usages appears to refer to the technical meaning
of "statistical significance."
You had me wondering for quite a while here about who
the hell would run a babysitting database, and if it could
be someone from the "think of the children" crowd...
I think the main issue with this "fix" is that current 3D projector technology can't run at double the framerate
Current 3D projector technology actually can run at six times the frame rate.
They project at 144Hz, alternating every film frame three times, resulting in 72Hz
for each eye. Of course, this still leaves you with 24 frames per second displayed at 72Hz
in theaters.
Note: Frame rate and display rate aren't the same, even if the former is often used instead of the latter.
... normal movies are already projected too darkly half the time.
Blame the "digital" mania on that. [...] With digital projectors, where light passes through an LCD, that light must be dimmer because the blacks would be washed out, no LCD has as much contrast as film.
Entirely false: All decently recent cinema-class digital projectors use DLP,
a reflective technology without any absorption in the projection path - which also enables them to render perfect black
in theory. In practice, there may be some stray light effects, but contrast is way superior to any transmissive technology.
A three-chip system (i.e. no rainbow effect) can absolutely stand up to film with respect to image quality, and easily surpasses
the ordinary n-th generation copy high-speed replication process film strips that make it to the cinemas.
The "regulated monopoly" of the phone lines was actually a huge success story for the United States. While we were building a coast-to-coast, 100% compatible and interoperable, relatively inexpensive telephone system, most other countries that had competition in that market ended up with multiple incompatible systems. In many cases you could not call your neighbor down the street, because he was on a different phone system that didn't play nice with yours. There were huge redundant mazes of wires overhead, belonging to different companies and systems, and completely incompatible switching systems. Often they operated at very different voltages and current.
You'll have to back this up with some seriously credible sources. Mind naming as few as three from those
"most other countries"? With examples that are post-18th-century insular city systems with dozens to
a few hundred very wealthy clients?
Note that just naming countries with multiple different standards isn't enough to back up your claim, they need
to be deployed in the same locations and have to be incompatible and not interconnected at any level. I'd be
surprised if you can find even a single one, but go ahead, surprise me.
Except that this doesn't cloak an objects infrared emissions, it makes it invisible to surrounding IR light.
There's nothing at all hiding the infrared emissions of the object hidden by the cloak.
Unless you find a way to break a couple of thermodynamic laws, there's no real way to completely hide an
object's thermal emissions if it is warmer than its surroundings.
On a Netbook, a glossy screen is particularly stupid, as you are much more likely to use it outside.
I got my first generation Aspire One (with SSD) for travelling, and was regularly annoyed by its
screen that showed me my face clearer than the content under most lighting conditions - until I crushed
it in an impressive bicycle accident.
(At least I assume it was impressive, multiple people came immediately running to look if I was OK.)
Replacing the screen cost about 2/3 of what I paid for the entire machine, and I wasn't going
to bother initially - until I learned about the third-party matte screen that was available.
Great investment, and pretty much everyone is quite envious when seeing it.
There's a nice bon mot about this: "The Soviets got the Germans who knew how it worked, the US the Germans who knew why it worked."
This sums it up surprisingly well, and also explains (while of course ignoring lots of other relevant stuff) why the Soviets
made it up there quite fast, but after this failed to make significant progress for quite a while.
Pictures circulating that are supposed to depict this wall show a sort of earth ramp (with grass and shrubbery on it)
that just ends with a steep drop of 10-15m on its northern side. Given the rather mediocre resolution of publicly
available imagery of the region, it is entirely possible for this ramp-wall to exist and still not be visible "from space".
"Any controller will detect a block of zero's as being unused data and just mark the block as such." - can you cite a source for that? It makes sense, as long as we're talking about full, raw blocks full of zeroes.
No it doesn't. What if I write a large file that is padded with zeroes to a certain size I intend to use later?
I certainly hope that my SSD will not eat away that file's padding...
Sorry, we can do this. We just aim a laser at the center of the system cell and destabilize it.
Riiiiight. And all the energy stored in this big vortex magically disappears.
I think you underestimate the technology we actually possess.
I think you seriously underestimate the scale of things that happen in nature.
The eye of a hurricane ranges from tens to hundreds of square kilometers. Where do you aim?
On the other hand, my Logitech mouse is so designed that you can only put them in the right way round (there is a guard on the positive pole that prevents the negative end from making contact, if the cell is reversed.)
Even better: The compartment on my Logitech mouse fits two AA batteries
put in parallel - the mouse will run on a single one just fine, just not
for as long. Very neat for all those single unpaired batteries that
seem to accumulate over time.
Oh, and Logitech ships replacement parts for free way past the original
warranty period: They've sent me a battery cover for one of their mice
roughly eight years after I bought it. At another occasion, a couple of
gliding pads for a mouse at least six years old. At no charge.
I have nothing to do with them, I'm just a really satisfied customer.
Slashdot Mirror
I sat a few of my friends down to watch some scenes from Avatar in 2D, and one of their jaws dropped [...]
Which one?
It warps you to another image of the Memorial from a similar angle. From this point, you can warp to four images. It might just be because it's late, but it sure blew my mind. (Especially if it's computer-generated linking.)
It is. They are doing this with user-supplied photographs worldwide.
Google must have an incredible amount of spare processing power.
My mind has recovered from being blown when first discovering this
a couple of months ago, but I'm still fairly impressed.
Just google, "Powerpoint makes you stupid"
The first that I had heard about this was from a NASA scientist following the Columbia accident.
"The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint briefing slides instead of technical papers as an
illustration of the problematic methods of technical communication at NASA."
-- Columbia Accident Investigation Board report, Vol.1, page 191
There's a scary example on that page too, look it up:
The vaguely quantitative words "significant" and
"significantly" are used 5 times on this slide, with de facto
meanings ranging from "detectable in largely irrelevant
calibration case study" to "an amount of damage so that
everyone dies" to "a difference of 640-fold." None of
these 5 usages appears to refer to the technical meaning
of "statistical significance."
That might be why the associated community is engaged in a massive campaign to rebrand itself as "Speculative Fiction".
SpyFy... Argh!
I hate babysitting databases...
You had me wondering for quite a while here about who
the hell would run a babysitting database, and if it could
be someone from the "think of the children" crowd...
Maybe a user doesn't like the new 4.0 look and wants to stay at 3.5? Give the user a box and ask. Do not change this behavior!
Congratulations for not even reading the summary: They will only do silent updates for
minor versions, i.e. security and stability updates.
The question will be kept for major updates, like 3.x to 4.
Actually there is an algorithm to compute the n-th digit of Pi without computing the rest.
Yup
However, it only works in base 16 - which means that for decimal digits, one still
has to calculate the whole thing.
I think the main issue with this "fix" is that current 3D projector technology can't run at double the framerate
Current 3D projector technology actually can run at six times the frame rate.
They project at 144Hz, alternating every film frame three times, resulting in 72Hz
for each eye. Of course, this still leaves you with 24 frames per second displayed at 72Hz
in theaters.
Note: Frame rate and display rate aren't the same, even if the former is often used instead of the latter.
... normal movies are already projected too darkly half the time.
Blame the "digital" mania on that. [...] With digital projectors, where light passes through an LCD, that light must be dimmer because the blacks would be washed out, no LCD has as much contrast as film.
Entirely false: All decently recent cinema-class digital projectors use DLP, a reflective technology
without any absorption in the projection path - which also enables them to render perfect black in theory.
In practice, there may be some stray light effects, but contrast is way superior to any transmissive technology.
A three-chip system (i.e. no rainbow effect) can absolutely stand up to film with respect to image quality, and easily
surpasses the ordinary n-th generation copy high-speed replication process film strips that make it to the cinemas.
Their PSU is inadequate for their card. High end graphics cards need a lot of voltage on the 12v rail.
I'd say they need 12V of voltage on the 12V rail...
The "regulated monopoly" of the phone lines was actually a huge success story for the United States. While we were building a coast-to-coast, 100% compatible and interoperable, relatively inexpensive telephone system, most other countries that had competition in that market ended up with multiple incompatible systems. In many cases you could not call your neighbor down the street, because he was on a different phone system that didn't play nice with yours. There were huge redundant mazes of wires overhead, belonging to different companies and systems, and completely incompatible switching systems. Often they operated at very different voltages and current.
You'll have to back this up with some seriously credible sources. Mind naming as few as three from those
"most other countries"? With examples that are post-18th-century insular city systems with dozens to
a few hundred very wealthy clients?
Note that just naming countries with multiple different standards isn't enough to back up your claim, they need
to be deployed in the same locations and have to be incompatible and not interconnected at any level. I'd be
surprised if you can find even a single one, but go ahead, surprise me.
[link to tvtropes.org]
You bastard! Help!
Your compiler can't compile itself!
Yes it can. It's called compiler bootstrapping
Where do you think today's compiler binaries come from?
several newspapers have had 'access' to them for a while. Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
You got that backwards: The newspapers were given access to the material by wikileaks.
The newspapers are not the source of the documents.
Except that this doesn't cloak an objects infrared emissions, it makes it invisible to surrounding IR light.
There's nothing at all hiding the infrared emissions of the object hidden by the cloak.
Unless you find a way to break a couple of thermodynamic laws, there's no real way to completely hide an
object's thermal emissions if it is warmer than its surroundings.
Add in capital letters and punctuation and it is more like 1^25 permutations.
That must be the famous single sign-on.
On a Netbook, a glossy screen is particularly stupid, as you are much more likely to use it outside.
I got my first generation Aspire One (with SSD) for travelling, and was regularly annoyed by its
screen that showed me my face clearer than the content under most lighting conditions - until I crushed
it in an impressive bicycle accident.
(At least I assume it was impressive, multiple people came immediately running to look if I was OK.)
Replacing the screen cost about 2/3 of what I paid for the entire machine, and I wasn't going
to bother initially - until I learned about the third-party matte screen that was available.
Great investment, and pretty much everyone is quite envious when seeing it.
Best bicycle accident I've ever had.
There's a nice bon mot about this: "The Soviets got the Germans who knew how it worked, the US the Germans who knew why it worked."
This sums it up surprisingly well, and also explains (while of course ignoring lots of other relevant stuff) why the Soviets
made it up there quite fast, but after this failed to make significant progress for quite a while.
Pictures circulating that are supposed to depict this wall show a sort of earth ramp (with grass and shrubbery on it)
that just ends with a steep drop of 10-15m on its northern side. Given the rather mediocre resolution of publicly
available imagery of the region, it is entirely possible for this ramp-wall to exist and still not be visible "from space".
-- Ghandi
Don't know who this is, but he ripped off a quote by Gandhi
Must be one of the most misspelled names ever.
"Any controller will detect a block of zero's as being unused data and just mark the block as such." - can you cite a source for that? It makes sense, as long as we're talking about full, raw blocks full of zeroes.
No it doesn't. What if I write a large file that is padded with zeroes to a certain size I intend to use later?
I certainly hope that my SSD will not eat away that file's padding...
"(stopping a hurricane - OMFG)"
Sorry, we can do this. We just aim a laser at the center of the system cell and destabilize it.
Riiiiight. And all the energy stored in this big vortex magically disappears.
I think you underestimate the technology we actually possess.
I think you seriously underestimate the scale of things that happen in nature.
The eye of a hurricane ranges from tens to hundreds of square kilometers. Where do you aim?
I think it's "happy", not "coffee". Haven't listened to it in a while though.
On board are:
And suddenly, those numbers have lost their fake precision. Nice, hm?
On the other hand, my Logitech mouse is so designed that you can only put them in the right way round (there is a guard on the positive pole that prevents the negative end from making contact, if the cell is reversed.)
Even better: The compartment on my Logitech mouse fits two AA batteries
put in parallel - the mouse will run on a single one just fine, just not
for as long. Very neat for all those single unpaired batteries that
seem to accumulate over time.
Oh, and Logitech ships replacement parts for free way past the original
warranty period: They've sent me a battery cover for one of their mice
roughly eight years after I bought it. At another occasion, a couple of
gliding pads for a mouse at least six years old. At no charge.
I have nothing to do with them, I'm just a really satisfied customer.