All you need to do is build a hardware unit that runs at 5 GHz, can test a million keys per clock cycle, embed them into every cellphone on the planet (4,100,000,000), have all of them work on the problem at once and wait 526,006,236 years.
That is an incorrect way of citing. You make it sound like it was written by Jack Nicholson himself. You either cite the author (Mark Andrus) or the character (Melvin Udall) - not the actor.
After all, you wouldn't write
"To be or not to be, that is the question" - Alfred Ryder
And if we really want to nit pick - from the trivia page on IMDB:
Udall's response to the question about how he writes women is an actual response given by author John Updike when asked the same question.
Well, if the non-gamer professional racing driver who can, pretty much, call Le Mans his back yard can do the lap in similar times as he can in real life, I'd say it's a pretty accurate simulation
Re:Like Woz didn't move on a LONG time ago?
on
The Apple Two
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· Score: 1
What is it the iPad needs to setup through another computer? And what is it that needs to be synced?
I don't have one, nor do I foresee a need or want for one, but this part makes me curious.
Granted, not exactly a fair match-up, as Tom doesn't have much (if any) experience in that game, but he manages to do a 3:23 lap, which is pretty much what he expected to do before they played. By comparison the qualifying times for the 2009 Le Mans was 3:22.888 for pole position.
The gamer ended up at 3:15, which is an insane lap of Le Mans. Obviously not doable in real life, and I suspect most gamers would be scared shitless the first time they ended up in a situation where they feel the back-end sliding a bit, but the point remains - gamers can beat the pros at the games.
Also, if the enemy evacuate wounded and you are reasonable certain they are not being, or going to be, treated, they are not protected. The wounded are, but not those evacuating them.
I'm not entirely certain, what you're trying to say here. Possibly me being dense, but could you elaborate? Possibly with examples.
That being said, it's really bad behaviour gunning down defenceless people trying to help a wounded person. They didn't even wait to see if they were picking up weapons. They just said "they've arrived to clear out weapons". An assumption, not something backed up by visual confirmation.
It's really difficult to claim they're trying to establish law and order, when they're shooting people trying to help wounded people.
I don't have a problem with it either. What I have a problem with, is when there is support behind the idea that those people should be treated like terrorists.
If they target civilians with bombing etc., sure, but attacking soldiers doesn't make you a terrorist.
Very well written post, but I do have a question. Would you mind elaborating on a few terms?
The Crazyhorse element? I'm guessing it's not SS Crazy Horse (NCC-50446) from Star Trek, though that'd be awesome in combat. Is it simply a different way to indicate a chopper? Crazy Horse?
The Bushmaster element? It could be a Bushmaster IMV, but that doesn't make much sense to me, as the Wiki article indicates it's not used by US forces.
You do not expect journalists with cameras to be walking around. (It's not unforeseeable if you sit and think, but during combat, it would never occur to anyone that these were really large cameras.)
What combat? There was no combat until the gunships opened fire. They came across an open square with a congregation of people. Not people who started to look up and look for defensive positions to target the Apache. Not people who looked nervous, excited or otherwise indicated they'd be about to launch an attack.
Now, I will admit that the journalist framing the picture, presumably to get a long narrow street with the Apache hovering over it, looks suspicious, but there was no combat.
But maybe you can't have something less letal than this so, false positives will happend.
You can have something that's a LOT less lethal.
We're talking city combat here. The use of rockets is pretty much out of the question. That means that we can equip the Apache AH-64 with a huge spot-light and powerful speakers, just like you get in regular police helicopters. And since we can live pilot UAVs halfway around the world, it shouldn't be impossible to have a live camera and speaker feed back to base, where you have people who speak the language.
That way you could simply point the spotlight on this group and tell them to put the 'weapons' down and get down on the ground. Then you send in infantry to check on them. Sure, it might be cheaper to simply shoot anyone you suspect, but it'd also be easier to just nuke Baghdad, and you'd definitely take out a lot more rebels in one go.
The coalition is supposedly trying to bring peace and the rule of law to a war torn country. That requires police, not soldiers. And since we're not sending police there, at least we could equip the military with stuff that makes them more police-like and gives them options the police has.
Shooting targets that are clearly identifiable as civilians would do the trick.
Congratulation - you've won the Catch 22 award.
Is this taking place in a city? Yes. Do civilians tend to live in cities? Yes. Are there lots of civilians in this particular city? Yes, 6.5 million Do some of these civilians take up arms against the Coalition Forces? Yes. Do these people wear anything that makes them distinguished? No
So you're pretty much saying it's alright to just shoot all 6.5 million people in Baghdad. You cannot clearly identify someone as a civilian. The only difference between a civilian and a rebel is the weapon in the hand of the rebel. And since we only see three or four suspect weapons in the initial group of twelve, the other eight or nine are what? Out of luck?
And as for it being okay to shoot people who happen to be in an area, where shots have been fired previously. It's in a CITY. That city has five thousand people per square kilometer. Are they all just supposed to sit indoors all day long, starving to death? Are the reporters supposed to only go with the occupation forces, covering only their point of view? Are the reporters supposed to just ignore the plight of the civilians who have done nothing at all, and not report on the unfortunate consequences they suffer under?
And as for the van not being a marked Red Cresent vehicle (Muslim countries use the cresent instead of the cross)... ask yourself this question: You are somewhere where ambulance service is spotty to non-existant. You see someone who's bleeding to death on the sidewalk. Are you really callous enough to look at that situation and go "fuck it, I'm not helping him"?
I'm not. And there's nothing to indicate that the van driver even knew the Apache was the one responsible for the shooting. They could easily have assumed that the Apache had chased away the people responsible, and it was providing cover for them.
Which brings up another point - why the fuck haven't the US mounted speakers on their gunships? Just use some prerecorded phrases like "place the weapons on the ground and lie down next to them". Add a powerfull spotlight to it, like you get on the tiny Bell police helicopters, and stuff like this could easily be avoided. And it'd add a lot more weight to the suggestion that the Coalition is there to bring about law and order until the Iraqi police can take over.
Well, it'll be interesting if the US is ever invaded. I'm sure you'll see the same people who are currently argue that a country's citizens shouldn't be allowed to fight against an occupying force, will be the first ones to tell their countrymen to put down their weapons and surrender.
The TSA is another classic example - no containers of liquid greater than 100ml on the plane because that's on the checklist, but indiscriminate dumping of hundreds of them into one big trash bucket next to 30+ people in line at the checkpoint is fine because that's not on the checklist.
It's always a fun discussion to have with the security personnel (just make sure it's not one you have at the airport).
"Suppose you saw someone with what looked like a hand grenade on his belt, would you tell him to just dump it in the bin?" "Well, no, I'd call the cops on his ass and bring in the bomb squad." "But the greater than 100 ml liquid container that might be an explosive, is dumped into the 100 liter bin with the 20 liters already in there?" "Uhm..." "So now you have 20 liters of potential explosive liquids in that bin." "Ehh..." "Suppose someone discarded an innocent looking packet of cigarettes into the bin, would you be concerned?" "Well... no. People throw all kinds of crap in there." "And if I told you that you could build a small detonator that fits perfectly fine inside of an empty packet of cigarettes?"
Remember the men with weapons outside the Obamacare townhalls? Would it be okay to turn automatic (anti-vehicle) weapons on that crowd?
You can't compare apples to oranges. The Townhallers were true American patriots. The ones that were shot were Iraqi terrorist scumbags wielding "cameras".
For example, why exactly did people have video cameras?
Yes, I can't imagine why photo journalists would ever want to waste their time reporting on the state of a war torn country. I mean, that has never ever happened before, and it certainly hasn't been the case in Iraq, and definitely not since 2003.
It's not like there were any embedded reporters with any of the troops moving in.
Besides - Iraq's a 3rd world country and dirt poor. Obviously the only people who can afford cameras with big lenses are terrorists making money off of drug trade.
Only useful for certain types of books. When's the last time you've taken out a fiction book and flicked through it to find something in particular (apart from your bookmark)?
And also, for people who move around a lot, electronic books probably have a weight advantage.
That's not "probably". I only have a limited collection of books, but they still weigh about 50 kg. The upside is, that if someone drops a book down a flight of stairs, they're still able to use it afterwards. Accidents do happen.
Now, if you drop it into a lake, or you're reading at the beach and a freak wave comes in and soaks you... the book or two you brought you might be salvageable, but otherwise it's just a matter of replacing two books at maybe 15 bucks each. Your eBook reader on the other hand is toast, and depending on the DRM involved, so are your books.
Don't get me wrong though. I like the idea of ebooks and ebook readers. I just don't have the money for one. And you can do things with readers that you cannot do with books, like making them waterproof. I'd love to get an e-reader I can take into the bathtub, hot tub or the beach and not have to worry about it getting wet. My Garmin Edge 705 GPS + heart rate monitor is water proof down to a meter for 30 minutes, and that's a US$ 479 item at Amazon, has a built in Micro SD-card slot and USB connector. That's 10 dollars less than the Kindle DX, and I'm fairly certain the DX wouldn't survive if you let it get wet.
Obviously they aren't the same kind of device, but my point is I can get an advanced piece of electronic hardware that includes user interaction AND is waterproof for less money than a Kindle DX, so waterproofing the DX should be doable within that price-range.
I can top that. Back in 7th grade, my cousin and I were selling lottery tickets door to door for charity. As a joke at the first house on our route, I said:
Five kroner a piece, four for an even twenty
And the guy at the door wanted to buy four for twenty.
Figuring it was just a fluke, we tried it at the next house. Same thing. So we did it the entire route. Out of about a hundred houses, only a handful of people batted an eyebrow and asked if we didn't mean five for twenty.
I suspect we've been so indoctrinated into getting discounts if we buy multiples, that we don't even check to see if we're saving money. Like the 99 cents vs 1 dollar thing. Sure, if we buy 99 of them, we can get one more for free. But books? If you buy a hundred books at 9.99 you've saved exactly 1 dollar over the 10.00 ones. And just the time you lose keeping track of that tiny coin every time is going to cost you more money. If you buy a thousand books at 9.99 instead of 10 you can now afford one more book.
Personally I can go through a typical book in about 4 hours. So it's taken me half a year to save up enough money to buy another book.
Well, they are pretty good at making controlled deorbits into the oceans. And considering the mass of aerogel (lightest is 1.9 mg/cm^3 compared to 1.2 mg/cm^3 for air), a 100x100x10 m^3 block of aerogel would weigh 190 ton. Sounds like a lot, but if you stood it on its smallest end that's only 0.25 psi or 0.017 atmospheres.
In other words, you wouldn't really feel it if it laid on top of you, which is an absurd notion.
Build and deploy massive blocks of aerogel in orbit and use it to scoop up debris and lost parts. Making it burn up on re-entry might be a problem though.
The alternative would be just keeping them all in jail or killing them. Both are pretty expensiv
The only reason it's expensive to execute someone, is that you have chosen that it should be so.
Five blanks and a live round are fairly cheap if you choose to go with a firing squad immediately after sentencing. Alright, you'll need a firing squad and cleaning crew as well. If you choose to place the defendant in an air tight, transparent box with its own air supply before the sentence is read out, you could switch the air supply to pure nitrogen and kill him through nitrogen asphyxiation. Bonus points for very easy clean-up and the ability to use the deceased as an organ donor. It can be done on the cheap, by simply having the jury turn on the gas. Hanging is cheap, and the rope and gallows can be reused afterwards. It can be a bit messy if the rope is too long or not long enough, but you could make it a stadium event where people have to pay to see it. Might be able to turn a profit.
Or for a bigger profit - turn it into a gladiator style execution. Every time we have say... 25 people sentenced to death, you put them into an a well lit arena, cameras covering every angle, live spectators and an obstacle course. Give them each a choice of hand-to-hand weapons, like swords, knives, clubs etc. and have a last man standing pay-per-view event. Survive three, and your sentence is changed to life instead of execution.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not that hard.
All you need to do is build a hardware unit that runs at 5 GHz, can test a million keys per clock cycle, embed them into every cellphone on the planet (4,100,000,000), have all of them work on the problem at once and wait 526,006,236 years.
Easy as pi.
That is an incorrect way of citing. You make it sound like it was written by Jack Nicholson himself. You either cite the author (Mark Andrus) or the character (Melvin Udall) - not the actor.
After all, you wouldn't write
And if we really want to nit pick - from the trivia page on IMDB:
Well, if the non-gamer professional racing driver who can, pretty much, call Le Mans his back yard can do the lap in similar times as he can in real life, I'd say it's a pretty accurate simulation
What is it the iPad needs to setup through another computer? And what is it that needs to be synced?
I don't have one, nor do I foresee a need or want for one, but this part makes me curious.
The other way around doesn't necessarily hold true. And even the best of the best can have problems against the hardcore gamers:
Video
This is a Danish language video, but it pitches Tom Kristensen, Mr. Le Mans, eight time winner (a record) in the 24 hour Le Mans, including six times in a row against a Danish hardcore gamer and national champion in GT for the PS2. Game is GT for PS2 on the Le Mans circuit.
Granted, not exactly a fair match-up, as Tom doesn't have much (if any) experience in that game, but he manages to do a 3:23 lap, which is pretty much what he expected to do before they played. By comparison the qualifying times for the 2009 Le Mans was 3:22.888 for pole position.
The gamer ended up at 3:15, which is an insane lap of Le Mans. Obviously not doable in real life, and I suspect most gamers would be scared shitless the first time they ended up in a situation where they feel the back-end sliding a bit, but the point remains - gamers can beat the pros at the games.
I'm not entirely certain, what you're trying to say here. Possibly me being dense, but could you elaborate? Possibly with examples.
That being said, it's really bad behaviour gunning down defenceless people trying to help a wounded person. They didn't even wait to see if they were picking up weapons. They just said "they've arrived to clear out weapons". An assumption, not something backed up by visual confirmation.
It's really difficult to claim they're trying to establish law and order, when they're shooting people trying to help wounded people.
I don't have a problem with it either. What I have a problem with, is when there is support behind the idea that those people should be treated like terrorists.
If they target civilians with bombing etc., sure, but attacking soldiers doesn't make you a terrorist.
Very well written post, but I do have a question. Would you mind elaborating on a few terms?
The Crazyhorse element? I'm guessing it's not SS Crazy Horse (NCC-50446) from Star Trek, though that'd be awesome in combat. Is it simply a different way to indicate a chopper? Crazy Horse?
The Bushmaster element? It could be a Bushmaster IMV, but that doesn't make much sense to me, as the Wiki article indicates it's not used by US forces.
What combat? There was no combat until the gunships opened fire. They came across an open square with a congregation of people. Not people who started to look up and look for defensive positions to target the Apache. Not people who looked nervous, excited or otherwise indicated they'd be about to launch an attack.
Now, I will admit that the journalist framing the picture, presumably to get a long narrow street with the Apache hovering over it, looks suspicious, but there was no combat.
You can have something that's a LOT less lethal.
We're talking city combat here. The use of rockets is pretty much out of the question. That means that we can equip the Apache AH-64 with a huge spot-light and powerful speakers, just like you get in regular police helicopters. And since we can live pilot UAVs halfway around the world, it shouldn't be impossible to have a live camera and speaker feed back to base, where you have people who speak the language.
That way you could simply point the spotlight on this group and tell them to put the 'weapons' down and get down on the ground. Then you send in infantry to check on them. Sure, it might be cheaper to simply shoot anyone you suspect, but it'd also be easier to just nuke Baghdad, and you'd definitely take out a lot more rebels in one go.
The coalition is supposedly trying to bring peace and the rule of law to a war torn country. That requires police, not soldiers. And since we're not sending police there, at least we could equip the military with stuff that makes them more police-like and gives them options the police has.
Congratulation - you've won the Catch 22 award.
Is this taking place in a city? Yes.
Do civilians tend to live in cities? Yes.
Are there lots of civilians in this particular city? Yes, 6.5 million
Do some of these civilians take up arms against the Coalition Forces? Yes.
Do these people wear anything that makes them distinguished? No
So you're pretty much saying it's alright to just shoot all 6.5 million people in Baghdad. You cannot clearly identify someone as a civilian. The only difference between a civilian and a rebel is the weapon in the hand of the rebel. And since we only see three or four suspect weapons in the initial group of twelve, the other eight or nine are what? Out of luck?
And as for it being okay to shoot people who happen to be in an area, where shots have been fired previously. It's in a CITY. That city has five thousand people per square kilometer. Are they all just supposed to sit indoors all day long, starving to death? Are the reporters supposed to only go with the occupation forces, covering only their point of view? Are the reporters supposed to just ignore the plight of the civilians who have done nothing at all, and not report on the unfortunate consequences they suffer under?
And as for the van not being a marked Red Cresent vehicle (Muslim countries use the cresent instead of the cross) ... ask yourself this question: You are somewhere where ambulance service is spotty to non-existant. You see someone who's bleeding to death on the sidewalk. Are you really callous enough to look at that situation and go "fuck it, I'm not helping him"?
I'm not. And there's nothing to indicate that the van driver even knew the Apache was the one responsible for the shooting. They could easily have assumed that the Apache had chased away the people responsible, and it was providing cover for them.
Which brings up another point - why the fuck haven't the US mounted speakers on their gunships? Just use some prerecorded phrases like "place the weapons on the ground and lie down next to them". Add a powerfull spotlight to it, like you get on the tiny Bell police helicopters, and stuff like this could easily be avoided. And it'd add a lot more weight to the suggestion that the Coalition is there to bring about law and order until the Iraqi police can take over.
Well, I for one would love to see a 155 mm Howitzer use its main gun to take out a APC at 50 meter ... fired horizontally of course :D
I realise that the Howitzer might end up tilting, but I have a morbid curiosity about how many rolls the APC will take.
Hell, I'd want to see it used against a pig ... I realise that the pig will die (quite a lot), but I'd still want to see it.
You can't be serious. Do you have any idea just how expensive it is to train an Apache pilot or gunner?
Well, obviously the US doesn't either. Granted, that wasn't an ambulance they shot, but they obviously didn't want them to pick up the wounded.
Well, it'll be interesting if the US is ever invaded. I'm sure you'll see the same people who are currently argue that a country's citizens shouldn't be allowed to fight against an occupying force, will be the first ones to tell their countrymen to put down their weapons and surrender.
It's always a fun discussion to have with the security personnel (just make sure it's not one you have at the airport).
"Suppose you saw someone with what looked like a hand grenade on his belt, would you tell him to just dump it in the bin?" ..." ..." ... no. People throw all kinds of crap in there."
"Well, no, I'd call the cops on his ass and bring in the bomb squad."
"But the greater than 100 ml liquid container that might be an explosive, is dumped into the 100 liter bin with the 20 liters already in there?"
"Uhm
"So now you have 20 liters of potential explosive liquids in that bin."
"Ehh
"Suppose someone discarded an innocent looking packet of cigarettes into the bin, would you be concerned?"
"Well
"And if I told you that you could build a small detonator that fits perfectly fine inside of an empty packet of cigarettes?"
You can't compare apples to oranges. The Townhallers were true American patriots. The ones that were shot were Iraqi terrorist scumbags wielding "cameras".
</sarcasm>
Yes, I can't imagine why photo journalists would ever want to waste their time reporting on the state of a war torn country. I mean, that has never ever happened before, and it certainly hasn't been the case in Iraq, and definitely not since 2003.
It's not like there were any embedded reporters with any of the troops moving in.
Besides - Iraq's a 3rd world country and dirt poor. Obviously the only people who can afford cameras with big lenses are terrorists making money off of drug trade.
</sarcasm>
Jon Stewart covered this
What about cook books? Or diet books?
Like this one: Dr. Tooshi's High Fiber Diet: A Revolutionary Diet that will Help You to Lose Weight, Prevent Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Digestive Disorders (Paperback)
It says so right on the front. High fiber diet.
Only useful for certain types of books. When's the last time you've taken out a fiction book and flicked through it to find something in particular (apart from your bookmark)?
That's not "probably". I only have a limited collection of books, but they still weigh about 50 kg. The upside is, that if someone drops a book down a flight of stairs, they're still able to use it afterwards. Accidents do happen.
Now, if you drop it into a lake, or you're reading at the beach and a freak wave comes in and soaks you ... the book or two you brought you might be salvageable, but otherwise it's just a matter of replacing two books at maybe 15 bucks each. Your eBook reader on the other hand is toast, and depending on the DRM involved, so are your books.
Don't get me wrong though. I like the idea of ebooks and ebook readers. I just don't have the money for one. And you can do things with readers that you cannot do with books, like making them waterproof. I'd love to get an e-reader I can take into the bathtub, hot tub or the beach and not have to worry about it getting wet. My Garmin Edge 705 GPS + heart rate monitor is water proof down to a meter for 30 minutes, and that's a US$ 479 item at Amazon, has a built in Micro SD-card slot and USB connector. That's 10 dollars less than the Kindle DX, and I'm fairly certain the DX wouldn't survive if you let it get wet.
Obviously they aren't the same kind of device, but my point is I can get an advanced piece of electronic hardware that includes user interaction AND is waterproof for less money than a Kindle DX, so waterproofing the DX should be doable within that price-range.
I really don't get that one...
I can top that. Back in 7th grade, my cousin and I were selling lottery tickets door to door for charity. As a joke at the first house on our route, I said:
And the guy at the door wanted to buy four for twenty.
Figuring it was just a fluke, we tried it at the next house. Same thing. So we did it the entire route. Out of about a hundred houses, only a handful of people batted an eyebrow and asked if we didn't mean five for twenty.
I suspect we've been so indoctrinated into getting discounts if we buy multiples, that we don't even check to see if we're saving money. Like the 99 cents vs 1 dollar thing. Sure, if we buy 99 of them, we can get one more for free. But books? If you buy a hundred books at 9.99 you've saved exactly 1 dollar over the 10.00 ones. And just the time you lose keeping track of that tiny coin every time is going to cost you more money. If you buy a thousand books at 9.99 instead of 10 you can now afford one more book.
Personally I can go through a typical book in about 4 hours. So it's taken me half a year to save up enough money to buy another book.
Well, they are pretty good at making controlled deorbits into the oceans. And considering the mass of aerogel (lightest is 1.9 mg/cm^3 compared to 1.2 mg/cm^3 for air), a 100x100x10 m^3 block of aerogel would weigh 190 ton. Sounds like a lot, but if you stood it on its smallest end that's only 0.25 psi or 0.017 atmospheres.
In other words, you wouldn't really feel it if it laid on top of you, which is an absurd notion.
Build and deploy massive blocks of aerogel in orbit and use it to scoop up debris and lost parts. Making it burn up on re-entry might be a problem though.
The only reason it's expensive to execute someone, is that you have chosen that it should be so.
Five blanks and a live round are fairly cheap if you choose to go with a firing squad immediately after sentencing. Alright, you'll need a firing squad and cleaning crew as well.
If you choose to place the defendant in an air tight, transparent box with its own air supply before the sentence is read out, you could switch the air supply to pure nitrogen and kill him through nitrogen asphyxiation. Bonus points for very easy clean-up and the ability to use the deceased as an organ donor. It can be done on the cheap, by simply having the jury turn on the gas.
Hanging is cheap, and the rope and gallows can be reused afterwards. It can be a bit messy if the rope is too long or not long enough, but you could make it a stadium event where people have to pay to see it. Might be able to turn a profit.
Or for a bigger profit - turn it into a gladiator style execution. Every time we have say ... 25 people sentenced to death, you put them into an a well lit arena, cameras covering every angle, live spectators and an obstacle course. Give them each a choice of hand-to-hand weapons, like swords, knives, clubs etc. and have a last man standing pay-per-view event. Survive three, and your sentence is changed to life instead of execution.