This could easily be done on a monochromed and thresholded (thresheld?) image to give white balls on a black background and then using Hough transforms to give the ball positions. The area detected could then be sampled from the original image to obtain the ball colour. This is cool! If only I had a pool table so I could do this;-(
Well, there may certainly be lots of people out there saying 'Typical American' to your post...
Get yoor head out of your arse and find out the truth, hell I believe the Wrights probably were the first, and the moon landings certainly took place but there's nothing wrong with checking...
No doubt I'll be mod'd down by a gang of USian moderators chanting USA!USA! for this, but I don't care- in fact I'd go as far to say 'Mod me down and I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...'
If you can put up as many candidates as the rest of the party you should get the same amount of time, money should be based upon election performance- and will affect how many candidates can be put up. Obviously this would need a lot of thinking about and will have problems to iron out, but the potential is there for it to be a lot better than what we have presently- it certainly shouldn't be thrown out immediately.
My suggestion isn't socialism, I suggest you visit Poland and ask what socialism really is.
The simple fact is that this freedom, one which is most easily exercised by corporations due to the amount of money involved, has a negative effect upon the freedoms of others, mostly private citizens.
I guess it all goes back to the old judgment that a corp. is a legal person, I imagine the signers of the Constituition would say this has had a perverse effect.
Sure we're about freedom, but sometimes somebody else's freedom prevents the freedom of others. A very old British Liberal politician (can't remember his name but it was 19th century) put it best by saying "Freedom for the Carp is death to the Guppy" (For people who don't fish, a Carp is a big fish that eats smaller fish, like the Guppy) Right now the corps. are Carp and us common folk are the Guppys.
As for this going on behind closed doors, sure there will be occasional scandal but with proper regulation this should be kept to a minimum, having said that- with the exception of Italy Europe has a lot less organised crime than the US
You walk into a shop, buy some thing, you pay sales tax.
You get home, plug it in, it doesn't work, you go back to the shop.
You give the product back, you get given your money back, including sales tax.
How is this scenario different? Proper bookeeping is required for dealing with sales tax as the trader. Proper bookkeeping makes it easy to make a refund.
The idea is no dumber than plenty coming out of the Whitehouse (under either recent president) regarding the Internet. Maybe if you knew a little about the EU you would appreciate that this is just somebody's idea and that it would have to go through the European parliement, the member parliments and all manner of subcommitees before it is enforced- and during this time it will be dropped when it is realised to be unenforcable, checks, measures, etc. are cool, things like the DMCA suggest the Europeans might be ahead here...
Well it would be a great leveller for starters, as well as The Big Two parties it would be a lot easier for smaller parties to get their message out instead of being drowned in the noise.
Maybe if you feel that nobody representing you is available for election you would be able to consider standing yourself under a new party banner
I imagine AOL-TimeWarner already make donations to the parties, so they are already sponsoring the next election in part.
There will always be conservative leaning and liberal leaning press, and it shall always be read by conservative and liberal leaning people. Candidates should not be able to buy adverts at all- whether TV, radio, magazine or any other. Television and radio should all have time set aside to provide election broadcasts one party at a time in a completly fair way, and naturally these media shall need to be compensated for this. Leave the debates for the news/current affairs programs.
This is what happens across Europe as I understand, and I don't think it's a coincidence that nearly 50% more of their electorates get out and vote or that the entire procedure seems a whole lot more dignified.
Parties should be limited as to how much they can spend during a campaign (as they are in Europe) and should maybe even be paid for through taxation- it would cost less thant 1% of the military budget and is a far bettter way of safeguarding democracy.
Re:Google enters this market at the right time
on
Google's Search Appliance
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm suprised it's taken Google so long to get in on the act, after all Northen Lights got into this just recently as well (Can't be bothered to search for the old/. link to the story right now though).
Three years ago I was involved in impelementing a similar box, from Excalibur Technologies, for the company I was working for during my university gap year (it was there that I first start reading/. too;-) The company was a massive multinational ex-British state owned utility and wanted to be able, amongst other things, have every single company document on the network and have a database of all staff and their skillset so that as relevent business units were formed managers could place staff already on the books rather than get contractors in. The system sold for several hundered thousands pounds, so there's plenty of money in it even if it's only the big companies who are going to really need this kind of thing.
Judging from the website Google clearly have some fantastic technology, and they certainly have the reputation, they should do very well.
Since there are so many more Predators rather than Prey aren't we more likely to see Predators fight amongst themselves in order to keep Prey for themselves? After all in the real world I can't think of a single carnivore which preys in packs on prey of a similar size. Predators gang up on larger animals, or hunt alone.
I suppose that might work then, but doesn't anyone see the problem with setting up *any* scientific experiment hoping to get a certain result? Not being a Cretinist I don't believe evolution set up life on Earth in order to get a fixed result.
needs to be able to draw the clover in the top as well, not easy...
Re:Timothy, get that compulsive knee jerking seen
on
Berlin's Robotic Pub
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· Score: 1
But if the public can go there then it shall be open to the knowledge or judgement of the public fuckcandle. What you don't appreciate is that over here in Europe we have far more protection of our personal data. The bar would not be able to sell your information to Budweiser so they can txt you everytime you enter the place with an advert, only other members of the bar, and if you find this so offensive they are forced to allow you to opt out- in fact it is becoming common practice to force people to opt in rather than opt out.
I don't know about Germans, but any Brit who is caught drink-driving recevies an automatic ban of at least one year and has to take a much harder test afterward to regain their license. Anyone who causes an accident whilst drink-driving can expect up to ten years in nick, even more if someone dies and never see their license again. There has also been a consilidated push by government to over the last ten years to real bastardify drink-drivers (you should see the TV ads we get around Christmas, they get worse each year) so that drink-driving is simply no longer socially acceptable (a few years ago it was seen as ok to 'just have a couple' or 'have one for the road')
Police are allowed to stop any when they suspect of being drunk and breathalyse them, it is an offence to refuse a sample, anyone near the limit (which works out at about 1 litre of 5% ABV beer in an average sized man) is taken to the station for a blood test (if you refuse on religious grounds you get a urine test, but they hold you longer)
I heard that the US was a lot more lax, maybe that is why it has more of a problem there- any USians care to tell us what the rules are, is it State based or Federal?
Most people over here have no sympathy for drink-drivers and I think it is this unacceptability that has driven it down more than anything else.
You'd think it would be reasonably easy to fix the code to prevent this though. He has the code on in his journal, and if nothing else there's a couple of tags which could be banned
Slashdot Mirror
And here's a link about Hough transforms ...
This could easily be done on a monochromed and thresholded (thresheld?) image to give white balls on a black background and then using Hough transforms to give the ball positions. The area detected could then be sampled from the original image to obtain the ball colour. This is cool! If only I had a pool table so I could do this ;-(
a contraction of obscure and absurd perhaps?
Unless they're talking about gadgets for your car ;-)
Well, there may certainly be lots of people out there saying 'Typical American' to your post...
Get yoor head out of your arse and find out the truth, hell I believe the Wrights probably were the first, and the moon landings certainly took place but there's nothing wrong with checking...
No doubt I'll be mod'd down by a gang of USian moderators chanting USA!USA! for this, but I don't care- in fact I'd go as far to say 'Mod me down and I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...'
It doesn't take a kreskin to tell that it's called the *Daily* Telegraph-- sheesh, learn to read.
Hmm, could be used as an interesting variation on the DoS attack-- that would be too funny
Somebody else buying the TV ads is exactly what soft money is, it can be stopped after all it simply does not happen in Europe.
If you can put up as many candidates as the rest of the party you should get the same amount of time, money should be based upon election performance- and will affect how many candidates can be put up. Obviously this would need a lot of thinking about and will have problems to iron out, but the potential is there for it to be a lot better than what we have presently- it certainly shouldn't be thrown out immediately.
My suggestion isn't socialism, I suggest you visit Poland and ask what socialism really is.
The simple fact is that this freedom, one which is most easily exercised by corporations due to the amount of money involved, has a negative effect upon the freedoms of others, mostly private citizens.
I guess it all goes back to the old judgment that a corp. is a legal person, I imagine the signers of the Constituition would say this has had a perverse effect.
Sure we're about freedom, but sometimes somebody else's freedom prevents the freedom of others. A very old British Liberal politician (can't remember his name but it was 19th century) put it best by saying "Freedom for the Carp is death to the Guppy" (For people who don't fish, a Carp is a big fish that eats smaller fish, like the Guppy) Right now the corps. are Carp and us common folk are the Guppys.
As for this going on behind closed doors, sure there will be occasional scandal but with proper regulation this should be kept to a minimum, having said that- with the exception of Italy Europe has a lot less organised crime than the US
You walk into a shop, buy some thing, you pay sales tax.
You get home, plug it in, it doesn't work, you go back to the shop.
You give the product back, you get given your money back, including sales tax.
How is this scenario different? Proper bookeeping is required for dealing with sales tax as the trader. Proper bookkeeping makes it easy to make a refund.
As for the original intent, don't be silly.
The idea is no dumber than plenty coming out of the Whitehouse (under either recent president) regarding the Internet. Maybe if you knew a little about the EU you would appreciate that this is just somebody's idea and that it would have to go through the European parliement, the member parliments and all manner of subcommitees before it is enforced- and during this time it will be dropped when it is realised to be unenforcable, checks, measures, etc. are cool, things like the DMCA suggest the Europeans might be ahead here...
:-)
Oh, and when you say the EU should build it's own Internet do you mean GEANT, The Fastest Backbone on Earth?
Well it would be a great leveller for starters, as well as The Big Two parties it would be a lot easier for smaller parties to get their message out instead of being drowned in the noise.
Maybe if you feel that nobody representing you is available for election you would be able to consider standing yourself under a new party banner
You're funny.
I imagine AOL-TimeWarner already make donations to the parties, so they are already sponsoring the next election in part.
There will always be conservative leaning and liberal leaning press, and it shall always be read by conservative and liberal leaning people. Candidates should not be able to buy adverts at all- whether TV, radio, magazine or any other. Television and radio should all have time set aside to provide election broadcasts one party at a time in a completly fair way, and naturally these media shall need to be compensated for this. Leave the debates for the news/current affairs programs.
This is what happens across Europe as I understand, and I don't think it's a coincidence that nearly 50% more of their electorates get out and vote or that the entire procedure seems a whole lot more dignified.
Political donations, especially soft money, SUCK.
Parties should be limited as to how much they can spend during a campaign (as they are in Europe) and should maybe even be paid for through taxation- it would cost less thant 1% of the military budget and is a far bettter way of safeguarding democracy.
I'm suprised it's taken Google so long to get in on the act, after all Northen Lights got into this just recently as well (Can't be bothered to search for the old /. link to the story right now though).
/. too ;-) The company was a massive multinational ex-British state owned utility and wanted to be able, amongst other things, have every single company document on the network and have a database of all staff and their skillset so that as relevent business units were formed managers could place staff already on the books rather than get contractors in. The system sold for several hundered thousands pounds, so there's plenty of money in it even if it's only the big companies who are going to really need this kind of thing.
Three years ago I was involved in impelementing a similar box, from Excalibur Technologies, for the company I was working for during my university gap year (it was there that I first start reading
Judging from the website Google clearly have some fantastic technology, and they certainly have the reputation, they should do very well.
Since there are so many more Predators rather than Prey aren't we more likely to see Predators fight amongst themselves in order to keep Prey for themselves? After all in the real world I can't think of a single carnivore which preys in packs on prey of a similar size. Predators gang up on larger animals, or hunt alone.
I suppose that might work then, but doesn't anyone see the problem with setting up *any* scientific experiment hoping to get a certain result? Not being a Cretinist I don't believe evolution set up life on Earth in order to get a fixed result.
Yeah, something like this is as deserving as the name-the-mySQL-dolphin competition recently (I liked Bottleneck the Bottlenose ;-)
Oh well, best get the Krayons out.
I think they'd make $9.99 ;-)
needs to be able to draw the clover in the top as well, not easy...
But if the public can go there then it shall be open to the knowledge or judgement of the public fuckcandle. What you don't appreciate is that over here in Europe we have far more protection of our personal data. The bar would not be able to sell your information to Budweiser so they can txt you everytime you enter the place with an advert, only other members of the bar, and if you find this so offensive they are forced to allow you to opt out- in fact it is becoming common practice to force people to opt in rather than opt out.
I don't know about Germans, but any Brit who is caught drink-driving recevies an automatic ban of at least one year and has to take a much harder test afterward to regain their license. Anyone who causes an accident whilst drink-driving can expect up to ten years in nick, even more if someone dies and never see their license again. There has also been a consilidated push by government to over the last ten years to real bastardify drink-drivers (you should see the TV ads we get around Christmas, they get worse each year) so that drink-driving is simply no longer socially acceptable (a few years ago it was seen as ok to 'just have a couple' or 'have one for the road')
Police are allowed to stop any when they suspect of being drunk and breathalyse them, it is an offence to refuse a sample, anyone near the limit (which works out at about 1 litre of 5% ABV beer in an average sized man) is taken to the station for a blood test (if you refuse on religious grounds you get a urine test, but they hold you longer)
I heard that the US was a lot more lax, maybe that is why it has more of a problem there- any USians care to tell us what the rules are, is it State based or Federal?
Most people over here have no sympathy for drink-drivers and I think it is this unacceptability that has driven it down more than anything else.
You'd think it would be reasonably easy to fix the code to prevent this though. He has the code on in his journal, and if nothing else there's a couple of tags which could be banned