Also it's worth mentioning that Lithium batteries are susceptible to problems from overcharging and low voltage draw. I've had a Li-po battery almost explode (http://brightpanda.com/images/robots/0/exploded_l i-po_small.jpg), luckily it just ballooned. But this doesn't surprise me at all. The more energy we try to place inside a container for later use on demand the more potentially volatile it becomes. It's hard to get around that.
And to add to you, I think Lovell was showing why he was an astronaut and we are on the surface. An astronaut doesn't give up when the S hits the fan, they act. I'd probably drown from all the piss in my space pants. As if sitting on top of so explosives and shooting yourself into space isn't dangerous enough, if he spent much time pondering the possible deaths he'd never get his work done. Besides, the amount of life support is limited, you'd only have to wait a while before you went out.
What I mean is, the most highest purpose of a man's life is his family, to care for them and to protect them, with body and soul, and that also includes financial matters
True, but your purpose is to give them the resources to help them grow, so they can give the same thing to their kids. If you just supply wealth without them having to do any real work, well how will they learn the skills needed in life, and teach their kids to survive?
Well just remember that hyperbole doesn't serve science. Because nothing would lose the public's trust more than this issue being a goose egg. You're literally yelling THE SKY IS FALLING, but in reality we're talking a change over thousands of years. When you read climatologists papers, as I assume you do since you follow science, then you'll see that yes there are dissenters from the theory of global warming caused by human activity, if not just saying to the community "look we need more information".
Just to preempt any "who are these dissenters" nonsense I'll just point to one that I think is worth looking at: Patrick Michaels from the Cato institute and University of Virginia. He's a proffesor of climatology and his point meet my point in agreement: we need more science and less politics. I have my own reasons for seeking alternative energies, but what I want to push is good science and that's it. I strongly believe science can help humanity, but only rigourous science. We want more data. We want better models. Not too much to ask and it's not talking crazy.
You want to swing science around like a mace? Fine go ahead, but that shit better be rock solid. Don't pretend for a second that skepticism is somehow ignorance, because that is the foundation of science. Stop automagically associating anyone that questions with people hell bent on our destruction, because its just not true and it serves no one but you.
Is it mandatory that whenever something new comes out a geek has to pull out the "yeah but why not just use N" card?
Amazing that a community that spouts so much about freedom of choice seems to ignore this everytime the M$ boogeyman (ooooooh he gonna get ya) shows his head.
How many moons are we talking? Because my experience differs.
I worked at Walter Reed Army Medical for years on a software project for the chief of neurosurgery. I came to find that he was considered one of the best neurosurgeons in the world. Why? Because the military sees a lot of spinal injuries of course. Walter Reed is the same place that works on the President of the US, congressman, etc. Is the president going to get a hack for a doctor?
I also was in the Army and worked with the doctors at Ft Knox for my asthma. I have yet to see an asthma expert that knew as much as these guys.
Do you see the political slant you placed in your arguments? This is what they are against. Global warming = GWB = SUVs = bad
So you saw the average temp rise since the 80s. Sorry thats not science. Especially not when we're talking about the climate of a planet that has been around for 4 billion years.
I have no problem being a eco-friendly person. In fact I drive 0 miles per day, instead taking mass transit. But I like my facts backed up with evidence, call me crazy. There is too much politics in science, particularly around this topic, which just happens to drive a ton of funding.
So why not publish the dissenting findings in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal? If there are sufficient grounds to question the research that has been published thus far, I would expect that it would not be difficult to promote a dissenting work.
Because the dissenting proof is reality, there is no solid evidence. So what would this hypothetical paper be dissenting against exactly? A study of lack of evidence in science due to following mainstream funding and the unwillingness of the public to take the actual "evidence" in context? because that's what they are saying.
Gore needs to let understand we have plenty politico BS attached to this topic already. Let the scientists work towards more solid evidence proving or disproving, and stop sticking his nose in places it doesnt belong. Stop making bold statements on the future of the world and how he is so sure of something because someone else wrote a paper that he did't read. But his advisor read the funding summary and saw the true bottom line: Global Warming == $.
Show me the ice cores and I'll show you samples that say the north pole had tropical temps at one time too, but no humans around... How odd. Must have been out of control steer flatulence raising co2 levels. Because I smell BULLSHIT. Real science, not speculation. Is that too much to ask for?
We'll today you get the same flash intensive sites, but now we see a new breed of fluff - web 2.0. The dotcom losers are back, pumping the "new paradigm" complete with removal of decoupled design and replaced with heavy client code.
I use AJAX in our applications we build but it's not "redefining the way we live", it's simply another tool in the box. I really am scared of these dotcom-esque people flooding the market again with "new ways to do business" that are really just the same brain dead ideas with new chrome bumpers. Some are genuinely nice, but it's the investors I fear. After the dotcom crash I ended up taking a 25k pay cut and working as a tester. It really hurt a lot of decent people.
This is interesting, when I study Japanese the romaji pronunciations will use the correct letter, but you are expected to pronounce it the proper Japanese way swapping the sounds. For instance in the hepburn romaji (most popular system) the L and R would have swapped sounds so when I say "Wakarimasu?" it would actually sound like "wa-ka-Li-mas".
Interestingly when I email my japanese pals across the pacific they will sometimes try to spell a word phonetically in english and do the same thing, replacing the R's with L's and vice versa.
Yeah true. I just found out about Origami from CNN yesterday and what is the first thing I do? I start wondering what the hype is all about. Dig a little deeper and find it's a tablet. Dig further and find it's another type of tablet and I'm a bit disappointed. I know that CNN has to draw eyeballs, but they totally spun it as if this secret product meant a whole new direction for MS, ala Apple with it's IPod.
I read the article, but I just want to be clear. Are these nothing more than smaller tablet PCs? I just assumed Origami was a bigger deal than that, considering all the hype.
Why is it, after every product release, someone says "is this it? I thought it would be more considering the hype".
What, do you actually fall for the corporate hype?
No product lives up to the hype, hence the word HYPE.
I'm not sure exactly what product you are waiting for but I have bad news - it's never coming. Except for the beer fetching robot, that really is coming.
Also one thing that seems to be lost on some is that the code itself is worthless. The design of that code is where the value is at. If you have a design pattern, reuseable code, whatever, the strength is in that knowledge, not in having access to the code itself necessarily. For instance, if I have a great way to manage objects across the network I can abstract this to a design pattern or technique that I can carry with me for the rest of my life and into other languages, modifying it to fit the application.
I do keep a historical code base on CDs and available via ftp but to me the design is more useful than the actual implementation. Kind of a broad statement but usually true in my experience.
So to sum it up? Abstract those chunks of code to good designs and put them in your notebook or whatever medium you choose. Just one more tool in your toolbox.
I miss the days when Philips made the EE2000 series electronic engineer kits where you could build stuff from scratch and re-use the components over again to build something else...well..I actually dont miss it..since i have millions of transistors and capacitors (again..thank you Ebay!) But you get the point. People need to have something to challenge their minds and it should not cost an arm and a leg.
two words: Lego Mindstorms
Perfect pricepoint, with the new NXT kit being priced around $280 with 32 bit chip, usb, bluetooth, servos, etc. Good for kids or just tinkering around imo, more if you want.
I prefer ye olde atmel st500k dev kit. $75 retail and you can find them on ebay for less.
Agreed, if anything I'd say this is a hiatus from robotics. Sony has fully acknowledged that it considers robotics a huge potential market and practically moved the entertainment robot into the home. Honda has been making great strides with it's ASIMO and showing the future of humanoids. But Qrio was truly interesting, the fluid movements of that little guy amazed me. The knowledge learned from this research will be used in the future, but by who?
This is a bit sad, but I wonder what will happen of the existing Qrios? Donated to universities or rented out?
After all, look at how much comfort and companionship a child can get from a simple teddy bear. Same concept, your imagination will create a personality for your little friend if necessary.
Well the same is done with most dogs, we tend to project our human traits onto them. They probably do feel emotions, such as the instinctual fear. But we tend to make them into "little humans" that are just as fragile, picturing them crying over us not being around when more likely they are licking their butt and wondering what that smell is.
But this type of argument is clearly a philisophical one. What is life. What is spirit? etc etc. Much more deep and hard to answer than the technical side which is much clearer.
But given how humans can project human traits onto dogs I don't see what the same won't be done with robots, especially ones created in a form that is familiar, such as a robot dog.
I was thinking, if apple makes the mac mini PVR as rumored then I'll get one of those and do just this, cradling the ipod and taking it to work on the train. If they don't soon I'm just gonna use mythTV or even maybe a windows media center pc!, some type of pvr. Just as long as I can start moving it all to digital and have it saved and displayed to selected formats. Should be relatively easy, it's been done before. But if apple did it I could save that time setting one up.
Well I can give my example why and maybe shed some light. I have an ipod video, got in not too long ago. I got it because I ride a train for about 3 hours every day total. Reading and music are fine, video is good too though. So I bought Lost season 1 from Itunes and liked it, now that I could actually tell wtf was going on. I don't watch much TV, maybe a few hours a week not including the video on the ipod. But now that I'm caught up and can understand it I watch it when it comes on. Most of my show watching happens on my ipod, but If I can watch it at home I will. So the ipod pretty much brought me to the show.
But there is one side they may not like, I love TV without commercials. So now I want a PVR to watch those shows later ad-free.
The message top content providers is clear, people will pay for ad free shows with good content. I think this is a good thing for geeks.
This got me to think a bit, how is this any different from buying an over priced pair of shoes? or a nice car that costs $250k USD? Or a diamond necklace that is not truly rare at all? It's an idea that is being sold, and idea that this particular exchange has value. Market value, someone is willing to pay.
I personally don't see the need or even want in this but it's not my money..
The 21st century just may be when the Sino-Communist brand of capitalism eclipses lAmerican power and influence.
I for one don't really care. My life goals do not include "maintain America as the premier super-power". I would like to think most Americans think the generally the same.
Besides, the world is now joined at the hip when it comes to economic and social prosperity. There isn't gonna be a powerful China without the US, and vice versa. We are all in this together, the sooner everyone realizes this the better.
Slashdot Mirror
Also it's worth mentioning that Lithium batteries are susceptible to problems from overcharging and low voltage draw. I've had a Li-po battery almost explode (http://brightpanda.com/images/robots/0/exploded_l i-po_small.jpg), luckily it just ballooned. But this doesn't surprise me at all. The more energy we try to place inside a container for later use on demand the more potentially volatile it becomes. It's hard to get around that.
And to add to you, I think Lovell was showing why he was an astronaut and we are on the surface. An astronaut doesn't give up when the S hits the fan, they act. I'd probably drown from all the piss in my space pants. As if sitting on top of so explosives and shooting yourself into space isn't dangerous enough, if he spent much time pondering the possible deaths he'd never get his work done. Besides, the amount of life support is limited, you'd only have to wait a while before you went out.
What I mean is, the most highest purpose of a man's life is his family, to care for them and to protect them, with body and soul, and that also includes financial matters
True, but your purpose is to give them the resources to help them grow, so they can give the same thing to their kids. If you just supply wealth without them having to do any real work, well how will they learn the skills needed in life, and teach their kids to survive?
Well just remember that hyperbole doesn't serve science. Because nothing would lose the public's trust more than this issue being a goose egg. You're literally yelling THE SKY IS FALLING, but in reality we're talking a change over thousands of years. When you read climatologists papers, as I assume you do since you follow science, then you'll see that yes there are dissenters from the theory of global warming caused by human activity, if not just saying to the community "look we need more information".
Just to preempt any "who are these dissenters" nonsense I'll just point to one that I think is worth looking at: Patrick Michaels from the Cato institute and University of Virginia. He's a proffesor of climatology and his point meet my point in agreement: we need more science and less politics. I have my own reasons for seeking alternative energies, but what I want to push is good science and that's it. I strongly believe science can help humanity, but only rigourous science. We want more data. We want better models. Not too much to ask and it's not talking crazy.
You want to swing science around like a mace? Fine go ahead, but that shit better be rock solid. Don't pretend for a second that skepticism is somehow ignorance, because that is the foundation of science. Stop automagically associating anyone that questions with people hell bent on our destruction, because its just not true and it serves no one but you.
Is it mandatory that whenever something new comes out a geek has to pull out the "yeah but why not just use N" card?
Amazing that a community that spouts so much about freedom of choice seems to ignore this everytime the M$ boogeyman (ooooooh he gonna get ya) shows his head.
How many moons are we talking? Because my experience differs.
I worked at Walter Reed Army Medical for years on a software project for the chief of neurosurgery. I came to find that he was considered one of the best neurosurgeons in the world. Why? Because the military sees a lot of spinal injuries of course. Walter Reed is the same place that works on the President of the US, congressman, etc. Is the president going to get a hack for a doctor?
I also was in the Army and worked with the doctors at Ft Knox for my asthma. I have yet to see an asthma expert that knew as much as these guys.
Okay, I'm gonna go home and beat my kid now.
IMHO, People who whine about the broken HTML and/or the goofy choices some people make with their pages are losing sight of the Big Picture.
No, this actually makes the big picture easier to see - we are surrounded by fucking idiots.
Do you see the political slant you placed in your arguments? This is what they are against. Global warming = GWB = SUVs = bad
So you saw the average temp rise since the 80s. Sorry thats not science. Especially not when we're talking about the climate of a planet that has been around for 4 billion years.
I have no problem being a eco-friendly person. In fact I drive 0 miles per day, instead taking mass transit. But I like my facts backed up with evidence, call me crazy. There is too much politics in science, particularly around this topic, which just happens to drive a ton of funding.
So why not publish the dissenting findings in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal? If there are sufficient grounds to question the research that has been published thus far, I would expect that it would not be difficult to promote a dissenting work.
Because the dissenting proof is reality, there is no solid evidence. So what would this hypothetical paper be dissenting against exactly? A study of lack of evidence in science due to following mainstream funding and the unwillingness of the public to take the actual "evidence" in context? because that's what they are saying.
Gore needs to let understand we have plenty politico BS attached to this topic already. Let the scientists work towards more solid evidence proving or disproving, and stop sticking his nose in places it doesnt belong. Stop making bold statements on the future of the world and how he is so sure of something because someone else wrote a paper that he did't read. But his advisor read the funding summary and saw the true bottom line: Global Warming == $.
Show me the ice cores and I'll show you samples that say the north pole had tropical temps at one time too, but no humans around... How odd. Must have been out of control steer flatulence raising co2 levels. Because I smell BULLSHIT. Real science, not speculation. Is that too much to ask for?
We'll today you get the same flash intensive sites, but now we see a new breed of fluff - web 2.0. The dotcom losers are back, pumping the "new paradigm" complete with removal of decoupled design and replaced with heavy client code.
I use AJAX in our applications we build but it's not "redefining the way we live", it's simply another tool in the box. I really am scared of these dotcom-esque people flooding the market again with "new ways to do business" that are really just the same brain dead ideas with new chrome bumpers. Some are genuinely nice, but it's the investors I fear. After the dotcom crash I ended up taking a 25k pay cut and working as a tester. It really hurt a lot of decent people.
This is interesting, when I study Japanese the romaji pronunciations will use the correct letter, but you are expected to pronounce it the proper Japanese way swapping the sounds. For instance in the hepburn romaji (most popular system) the L and R would have swapped sounds so when I say "Wakarimasu?" it would actually sound like "wa-ka-Li-mas".
Interestingly when I email my japanese pals across the pacific they will sometimes try to spell a word phonetically in english and do the same thing, replacing the R's with L's and vice versa.
Yeah true. I just found out about Origami from CNN yesterday and what is the first thing I do? I start wondering what the hype is all about. Dig a little deeper and find it's a tablet. Dig further and find it's another type of tablet and I'm a bit disappointed. I know that CNN has to draw eyeballs, but they totally spun it as if this secret product meant a whole new direction for MS, ala Apple with it's IPod.
Pretty much another let down.
I read the article, but I just want to be clear. Are these nothing more than smaller tablet PCs? I just assumed Origami was a bigger deal than that, considering all the hype.
Why is it, after every product release, someone says "is this it? I thought it would be more considering the hype".
What, do you actually fall for the corporate hype?
No product lives up to the hype, hence the word HYPE.
I'm not sure exactly what product you are waiting for but I have bad news - it's never coming. Except for the beer fetching robot, that really is coming.
Also one thing that seems to be lost on some is that the code itself is worthless. The design of that code is where the value is at. If you have a design pattern, reuseable code, whatever, the strength is in that knowledge, not in having access to the code itself necessarily. For instance, if I have a great way to manage objects across the network I can abstract this to a design pattern or technique that I can carry with me for the rest of my life and into other languages, modifying it to fit the application.
I do keep a historical code base on CDs and available via ftp but to me the design is more useful than the actual implementation. Kind of a broad statement but usually true in my experience.
So to sum it up? Abstract those chunks of code to good designs and put them in your notebook or whatever medium you choose. Just one more tool in your toolbox.
Maybe so, but your kids will love it.
And I will beat them for it.
I miss the days when Philips made the EE2000 series electronic engineer kits where you could build stuff from scratch and re-use the components over again to build something else...well..I actually dont miss it..since i have millions of transistors and capacitors (again..thank you Ebay!) But you get the point. People need to have something to challenge their minds and it should not cost an arm and a leg.
two words: Lego Mindstorms
Perfect pricepoint, with the new NXT kit being priced around $280 with 32 bit chip, usb, bluetooth, servos, etc. Good for kids or just tinkering around imo, more if you want.
I prefer ye olde atmel st500k dev kit. $75 retail and you can find them on ebay for less.
Agreed, if anything I'd say this is a hiatus from robotics. Sony has fully acknowledged that it considers robotics a huge potential market and practically moved the entertainment robot into the home. Honda has been making great strides with it's ASIMO and showing the future of humanoids. But Qrio was truly interesting, the fluid movements of that little guy amazed me. The knowledge learned from this research will be used in the future, but by who?
This is a bit sad, but I wonder what will happen of the existing Qrios? Donated to universities or rented out?
After all, look at how much comfort and companionship a child can get from a simple teddy bear. Same concept, your imagination will create a personality for your little friend if necessary.
Well the same is done with most dogs, we tend to project our human traits onto them. They probably do feel emotions, such as the instinctual fear. But we tend to make them into "little humans" that are just as fragile, picturing them crying over us not being around when more likely they are licking their butt and wondering what that smell is.
But this type of argument is clearly a philisophical one. What is life. What is spirit? etc etc. Much more deep and hard to answer than the technical side which is much clearer.
But given how humans can project human traits onto dogs I don't see what the same won't be done with robots, especially ones created in a form that is familiar, such as a robot dog.
I was thinking, if apple makes the mac mini PVR as rumored then I'll get one of those and do just this, cradling the ipod and taking it to work on the train. If they don't soon I'm just gonna use mythTV or even maybe a windows media center pc!, some type of pvr. Just as long as I can start moving it all to digital and have it saved and displayed to selected formats. Should be relatively easy, it's been done before. But if apple did it I could save that time setting one up.
No the shows I get from itunes have no commercials.
Well I can give my example why and maybe shed some light. I have an ipod video, got in not too long ago. I got it because I ride a train for about 3 hours every day total. Reading and music are fine, video is good too though. So I bought Lost season 1 from Itunes and liked it, now that I could actually tell wtf was going on. I don't watch much TV, maybe a few hours a week not including the video on the ipod. But now that I'm caught up and can understand it I watch it when it comes on. Most of my show watching happens on my ipod, but If I can watch it at home I will. So the ipod pretty much brought me to the show.
But there is one side they may not like, I love TV without commercials. So now I want a PVR to watch those shows later ad-free.
The message top content providers is clear, people will pay for ad free shows with good content. I think this is a good thing for geeks.
This got me to think a bit, how is this any different from buying an over priced pair of shoes? or a nice car that costs $250k USD? Or a diamond necklace that is not truly rare at all? It's an idea that is being sold, and idea that this particular exchange has value. Market value, someone is willing to pay.
I personally don't see the need or even want in this but it's not my money..
They have 1 billion smart people? Uhm, how are we defining _smart_?
The 21st century just may be when the Sino-Communist brand of capitalism eclipses lAmerican power and influence.
I for one don't really care. My life goals do not include "maintain America as the premier super-power". I would like to think most Americans think the generally the same.
Besides, the world is now joined at the hip when it comes to economic and social prosperity. There isn't gonna be a powerful China without the US, and vice versa. We are all in this together, the sooner everyone realizes this the better.