I was at a star party once with a friend, and I happened to catch something that acted like a pulse of light in the sky. It was very odd, and I only saw it once, so I discarded it as a potential glitch in my visual input sensors, and I didn't mention it. I happened to be studying that particular patch of sky for a short while, and then I saw it again. It was a distinct pulse, not a flash. It was as though the brightness level followed a bell curve or parabola. It gradually got brighter, reached a peak, and equally as gradulally darkened back to nothing.
After seeing it for the second time, I assumed it wasn't just my imagination or my eyes acting strangely, so I told a friend who immediately dismissed me as nuts, until shortly thereafter it appeared again.
My friend saw it, and then each time following another person joined the group of those who saw it. After about four or five times I noticed that the pulse was fairly regular, so I timed it. It just so happened to be exactly every two minutes. Very odd.
Some of the astronomers tried to point their telescopes at it, but it's erratic appearance for only 1-2 seconds every two minutes made it too difficult to find. After about 10 or 15 more pulses it started to die down and eventually stopped.
I memorized what stars it was between, and when I got home I looked up anything that was in that spot using a computer simulation. I didn't see anything there until I turned on the ecliptic line.
It lined up perfectly with where the pulse was. It only took me a moment to remember that's where the geostationary satellites are found. So it was just a rotating satellite, and I just happened to be in the exactly right place at the right time to see it reflect sunlight off of one of it's flat panels as it rotated at a perfectly human invented time unit interval =)
Hey Harry, you know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has two hundred thousand moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good doesn't it?
The device they have shown is a modified Compaq iPAQ, which they have so far modified to control two lamps, a fan and a stereo with a five-CD changer."
Hate to break it to them, but someone's already invented this! They only cost $35, much less than an iPaq! =)
Mine controls my TV, cable, DVD player, stereo, living room lights, bedroom lights, fan, and even my neighbor's cat (just kidding).
If you have the ability to install software on your computer, intall Proxomitron. It will let you filter out the activex stuff, so at least you won't get the annoying "This page may not be displayed correctly" prompt every time you get to an activex page that won't work due to your firewall.
BTW, Proxomitron basically lets you apply regex-like filtering and search/replace to your incoming HTML, so it's useful for a *lot* of stuff.
You mean the same girls who all try to look like one particular pop music star, or one of the two main female characters from "Friends"?
Bah, to hell with them... gimmie my LEGO house now dammit!
Re:First they came for the Indians...
on
Shop Till It Drops
·
· Score: 3, Funny
At nearly all of the places I shop, even the little debit terminals are slow as ass.
I don't get them. First I have to slide my card. The terminal even tells me "Welcome to Publix, Please Slide Your Card". I slide it, and the screen goes blank (as though it's "blocking" for a response from the "server").
Then the cashier finally scans the first item, which apparently begins the transaction. Of course, this resets the debit terminal so now it asks me to slide my card again. I slide it again, and after about 5-10 agonizingly long seconds, it finally asks me if I want Debit or Credit.
I always mash the debit button hard, becuase somewhere in my primitive ape-mind I get the idea that the harder I push, the sooner it'll finally ask me for my friggin' PIN number. After another 10-15 seconds, it finally asks me for my pin number, which I can type in faster than it can pick up, so I often have to clear it and type it in more slowly (and with more force, of course).
Next, I wait for the cashier to finish scanning (unless it was just two or three items, which even the slowest cashier can finish scanning by the time the terminal has finished parsing my four-digit pin number and prompts me to "Please Wait for Cashier".
Then without fail, every time, the cashier asks me "Is that Debit or Credit"? Why can't hir cash register tell hir? I just tell hir before they even get to that step, even though sometimes they do it again out of habit. I wonder what happens if you tell them debit but you entered credit on the terminal?
Finally, the total comes up on the terminal and I need to press the green enter key. As my hand goes down to press it, the cashier manages to pull off one of the fastest hand motions you'll ever see from hir and hits it for me. What's the purpose of having me press the button to authorize the charge if the cashier is just going to do it for me? Can't I decide at the last moment that I really didn't want to spend that much money and back out of the whole deal? What if I did just out of principle? I'm sure I'd be asked not to shop there again...
I'll take a mega-vending-machine anyday, so long as it runs on something faster than a Z80 processor and a 50 baud terminal connection.
What software did carnivore use before? I have always assumed it was a hacked up version of Convera's (formerly Excalibur's) RetrievalWare product.
I took a couple of classes at their HQ (near Washington DC of all places), and there were a lot of big government acronyms in the room taking the class with me. If you know the RetrievalWare product, you'll know that it has a lot of features which are perfect for wading through very large amounts of data, with minimal false positives.
RetrievalWare also does conceptual searching (very complex thesaurus) and OCR searching (works well for misspellings and l33t sp33k too), and all can be run through filters that continuiously scan a stream of data... weighs the results, and alerts the user to matching hits above the result threshold.
I've always assumed it was RWare they were using, does anyone know if this is true? =)
Up until this, I was against blu-ray as the next widespread optical data format. Mostly because I was hoping FMD would win that honor. But if this means companies will start mass producing bulk quantites of 405nm laser diodes, I'm all for it;-)
Repetition is how they hook you.
Repetition is how they hook you.
Repetition is how they hook you.
Repetition is how they hook you.
Repetition is how they hook you.
The only thing I regret is buying all the CDs I did before I saw the RIAA's true colours.
So sell it. I just started selling my stuff on there, and since it's all crap to me now (I don't listen to any mainstream music anymore), I price it low, and it's flying off my bookshelf. I just went to my storage unit to get more old stuff out =)
Ever since mp3's have been out, I have practically stopped using CDs altogether. I still purchase a CD which contains music that I enjoy, to support the music.
However, I don't open these CDs, but instead I just put them in my cd-rack and let them collect dust. Recently, I've been a lot less interested in a particular genre of music, so I've begun to sell these unopened CDs, and delete the corresponding music to make it all clean.
So now, I'm selling "Brand New" CD's at very close to their original price, even though the "license" of my listneing to the music is "used".
Sort of weird. It almost feels like cheating, as I legally enjoyed the privledges of listening to the music for free.:) Although, I'm sure the RIAA would consider this whole thing stealing...
Now I imagine the same can be done with computer games. I can buy the "box" at the store, leave it sealed, stick it on my bookshelf, download the game off the net, play it for a week or two, and when I'm done, I sell the game as brand new and unopened on half.com or ebay or whatever...
Anyone care to share their thoughts on the legality/morality/*lity of this?
I believe that the technical term for this kind of situation is called "gorilla arm". Named after the ape-like stance that eventually develops after using a touch-screen kiosk for a long period of time, primarily as a result of fatigue from holding your arm up while doing input.
The COIL [Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser] utilizes industrial strength household chemicals to produce its power.
Household chemicals? Ooo... so if I mix some ammonia, iodized salt, water, and ketchup, I'll have one of these? I bet my neighbors will quit making noise at 3 in the morning when they know I've got this!
"Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper." --Larry Flynt
The traffic problems have gotten awful, and not for lack of highways and 6-lane through roads. The bigger problem is much of Florida's other defining characteristic: fifty years of unregulated sprawl.
I agree... SimCity 101. Don't complately isolate your industrial, commercial and residential zones, or you'll get HellTraffic(TM).
I don't know if this train is the right idea; it certianly sounds nifty. And I doubt it'll take away any more from the state than it gives back. I'd certianly enjoy using it to get to orlando without a 3 hour drive, but I do respect the opinions of the people who live in the north part of the state who will get practically nothing from it.
I really wish Tri-Rail had a station near me. I would love to save the money on gas and the frustration of driving during the peak hour of the rat-race. Irritatingly enough, I live within 100 yards of the tri-rail track, and I work within 200-250 yards of the same track, 10 miles north of where I live.
On its own, this high-speed rail network may well only do what its detractors think it will do: ferry families from Florida's coastal cities to Disney World for weekend trips.
While I agree with most of what you said, I don't see why tourists visiting Orlando wouldn't want to come and see the beaches. I often see Disney busses on the turnpike and 95 south of west palm, so I assume there must be some interest in Orlando visitors coming down here.
And don't get me started on a digital IMAX projector...;)
According to the author of this post, it would take a 1.91x2.74 DLP chip; and according to the author of this post, it would require a sustained data transfer rate of about 1GB/sec and a movie would require about 12TB of storage.
According to the thread in the second post, IMAX did buy the company that made the DLP e-cinema system, Digital Projection International.
Re:American Culture Not That Bad
on
The Last Place
·
· Score: 2
Your right to have an abortion is still legal as is their right to protest it.
Sounds like you're all for tolerance, as long as it's something you're in favor of and anyone who disagrees can get the fuck out. Brilliant.
A woman's right to have an abortion is still legal as is other people's right to protest it, and my right to protest the protestors, and your right to protest my protest, and now my right to protest your protest with a metametametameta protest.
Now feel free to followup with your metametametametameta protest, but don't expect me to do this forever.
Brilliant? Yes. So there;-P
Re:American Culture Not That Bad
on
The Last Place
·
· Score: 2
Gotta watch out for those highly dangerous retirees
Slashdot Mirror
After seeing it for the second time, I assumed it wasn't just my imagination or my eyes acting strangely, so I told a friend who immediately dismissed me as nuts, until shortly thereafter it appeared again.
My friend saw it, and then each time following another person joined the group of those who saw it. After about four or five times I noticed that the pulse was fairly regular, so I timed it. It just so happened to be exactly every two minutes. Very odd.
Some of the astronomers tried to point their telescopes at it, but it's erratic appearance for only 1-2 seconds every two minutes made it too difficult to find. After about 10 or 15 more pulses it started to die down and eventually stopped.
I memorized what stars it was between, and when I got home I looked up anything that was in that spot using a computer simulation. I didn't see anything there until I turned on the ecliptic line.
It lined up perfectly with where the pulse was. It only took me a moment to remember that's where the geostationary satellites are found. So it was just a rotating satellite, and I just happened to be in the exactly right place at the right time to see it reflect sunlight off of one of it's flat panels as it rotated at a perfectly human invented time unit interval =)
<simpsons character="Neslon Muntz" empathy=0 align=evil>HA HA!</simpsons>
Increase the friction to commercial globalization... Sounds good to me.
Hey Harry, you know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has two hundred thousand moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good doesn't it?
Hate to break it to them, but someone's already invented this! They only cost $35, much less than an iPaq! =)
Mine controls my TV, cable, DVD player, stereo, living room lights, bedroom lights, fan, and even my neighbor's cat (just kidding).
Uh.. So putting sugar in my gas tank was a bad idea? I knew I should have read more than just the title! ;-)
BTW, Proxomitron basically lets you apply regex-like filtering and search/replace to your incoming HTML, so it's useful for a *lot* of stuff.
Google Search for Proxomitron
Bah, to hell with them... gimmie my LEGO house now dammit!
I don't get them. First I have to slide my card. The terminal even tells me "Welcome to Publix, Please Slide Your Card". I slide it, and the screen goes blank (as though it's "blocking" for a response from the "server").
Then the cashier finally scans the first item, which apparently begins the transaction. Of course, this resets the debit terminal so now it asks me to slide my card again. I slide it again, and after about 5-10 agonizingly long seconds, it finally asks me if I want Debit or Credit.
I always mash the debit button hard, becuase somewhere in my primitive ape-mind I get the idea that the harder I push, the sooner it'll finally ask me for my friggin' PIN number. After another 10-15 seconds, it finally asks me for my pin number, which I can type in faster than it can pick up, so I often have to clear it and type it in more slowly (and with more force, of course).
Next, I wait for the cashier to finish scanning (unless it was just two or three items, which even the slowest cashier can finish scanning by the time the terminal has finished parsing my four-digit pin number and prompts me to "Please Wait for Cashier".
Then without fail, every time, the cashier asks me "Is that Debit or Credit"? Why can't hir cash register tell hir? I just tell hir before they even get to that step, even though sometimes they do it again out of habit. I wonder what happens if you tell them debit but you entered credit on the terminal?
Finally, the total comes up on the terminal and I need to press the green enter key. As my hand goes down to press it, the cashier manages to pull off one of the fastest hand motions you'll ever see from hir and hits it for me. What's the purpose of having me press the button to authorize the charge if the cashier is just going to do it for me? Can't I decide at the last moment that I really didn't want to spend that much money and back out of the whole deal? What if I did just out of principle? I'm sure I'd be asked not to shop there again...
I'll take a mega-vending-machine anyday, so long as it runs on something faster than a Z80 processor and a 50 baud terminal connection.
I took a couple of classes at their HQ (near Washington DC of all places), and there were a lot of big government acronyms in the room taking the class with me. If you know the RetrievalWare product, you'll know that it has a lot of features which are perfect for wading through very large amounts of data, with minimal false positives.
RetrievalWare also does conceptual searching (very complex thesaurus) and OCR searching (works well for misspellings and l33t sp33k too), and all can be run through filters that continuiously scan a stream of data... weighs the results, and alerts the user to matching hits above the result threshold.
I've always assumed it was RWare they were using, does anyone know if this is true? =)
I thought SCO bought Xenix from MS?
Excellent! Is this yours, or who do I quote? =)
commodification of dissent
Are you the consumer or the product?
Ever since mp3's have been out, I have practically stopped using CDs altogether. I still purchase a CD which contains music that I enjoy, to support the music.
However, I don't open these CDs, but instead I just put them in my cd-rack and let them collect dust. Recently, I've been a lot less interested in a particular genre of music, so I've begun to sell these unopened CDs, and delete the corresponding music to make it all clean.
So now, I'm selling "Brand New" CD's at very close to their original price, even though the "license" of my listneing to the music is "used".
Sort of weird. It almost feels like cheating, as I legally enjoyed the privledges of listening to the music for free. :) Although, I'm sure the RIAA would consider this whole thing stealing...
Now I imagine the same can be done with computer games. I can buy the "box" at the store, leave it sealed, stick it on my bookshelf, download the game off the net, play it for a week or two, and when I'm done, I sell the game as brand new and unopened on half.com or ebay or whatever...
Anyone care to share their thoughts on the legality/morality/*lity of this?
Remember... with television, you're the product, not the consumer.
TV is like alcohol; it's ok when consumed socially in moderation, but best not done too often, and/or alone.
I believe that the technical term for this kind of situation is called "gorilla arm". Named after the ape-like stance that eventually develops after using a touch-screen kiosk for a long period of time, primarily as a result of fatigue from holding your arm up while doing input.
Household chemicals? Ooo... so if I mix some ammonia, iodized salt, water, and ketchup, I'll have one of these? I bet my neighbors will quit making noise at 3 in the morning when they know I've got this!
Cliff houses in Miami? Very nice. Thank you for the laugh, best one I've heard in a while :)
"Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper." --Larry Flynt
I don't know if this train is the right idea; it certianly sounds nifty. And I doubt it'll take away any more from the state than it gives back. I'd certianly enjoy using it to get to orlando without a 3 hour drive, but I do respect the opinions of the people who live in the north part of the state who will get practically nothing from it.
I really wish Tri-Rail had a station near me. I would love to save the money on gas and the frustration of driving during the peak hour of the rat-race. Irritatingly enough, I live within 100 yards of the tri-rail track, and I work within 200-250 yards of the same track, 10 miles north of where I live.
While I agree with most of what you said, I don't see why tourists visiting Orlando wouldn't want to come and see the beaches. I often see Disney busses on the turnpike and 95 south of west palm, so I assume there must be some interest in Orlando visitors coming down here.According to the author of this post, it would take a 1.91x2.74 DLP chip; and according to the author of this post, it would require a sustained data transfer rate of about 1GB/sec and a movie would require about 12TB of storage.
According to the thread in the second post, IMAX did buy the company that made the DLP e-cinema system, Digital Projection International.
Sounds like you're all for tolerance, as long as it's something you're in favor of and anyone who disagrees can get the fuck out. Brilliant.
A woman's right to have an abortion is still legal as is other people's right to protest it, and my right to protest the protestors, and your right to protest my protest, and now my right to protest your protest with a metametametameta protest.
Now feel free to followup with your metametametametameta protest, but don't expect me to do this forever.
Brilliant? Yes. So there ;-P
You obviously don't live in Boca Raton. I do. ;-)