I wonder what technique they used to come up with the qualitative measurement "relatively high".
A highometer was used to run a standard highometric analysis on a scale from "not" to "curiously." On the standard scale, "relatively" is the seventh mark on the indicator.
if the majority of Americans want public research into space exploration, medical research, and fundamental research, then it is the government's duty to carry out these wishes. the only hard rule about what a government ought to be doing is protecting the interests of its constituency. even in a world without military conflict (and thus with no need for "common defense") government will still be a necessity, just not in its present form.
believe it or not, not everyone is paranoid about a Soviet/German/Chinese invasion or terrorist attack. defense is far from the only common interest shared by a society. certain things like road systems, public education, communications networks, power grids, and other vital public infrastructure cannot be built by a lone individual. they require the collective efforts & resources of a community to develop.
likewise, law enforcement, emergency services, courts, etc. are all public services that a modern society needs to function. because most people don't want to live in a dog eat dog world where might makes right, we establish social institutions to ensure law and order and promote social justice. these institutions do far more for public safety on a day to day basis than a ridiculously expensive military.
There are two similar, but distinct conversations on this topic. You replied to somebody who talked about the common defense because that's in the constitution. The only reason the US Federal government exists is because some people drafted a constitution to create it. It doesn't inherently exist, and it has no inherent authority or duties except what the constitution says. Talking about what the government should be doing according to the constitution is one conversation. It's supposed to be doing (in this sense) some of what you talk about. For example, the constitution explicitly mentions post roads, so an interstate transportation system is among its duties and obligations.
There is also a conversation about what an ideal government in an ideal modern society ought to do. It sounds like this is what you are talking about. It's not a bad conversation. And, frankly I support the idea of the federal government being more involved in education, which you mention. But, it's important to realise that there are two different conversations going on between yourself and the person you replied to.
If the federal government fails to provide for defense, then it is violating the rules that permit it to exist, and the citizens have a right to dissolve it and declare the government null and void. That's the deal. If we get to a world where defense seems like an archaic task for the federal government, we could certainly create an ammendment to change the list of things that the government is "supposed to be doing." But, it's not about "according to who." It really is a concrete, not personal opinion lists of things that the government is supposed to do. (Though, interpretations of that list are of course wildly variable! That's the fun of vague arhcaic language.)
So, I'm not arguing with you. I'm just pointing out that you aren't arguing with the guy you replied to.
What I hate about all the spacefaring games I've seen so far is the way they divide space into "rooms". At the boundaries of each one you have to go through a magical door to get to another one, not actually fly really fast across vast distances like I always imagined.
I've thought about this problem quite a bit. Unfortunately, a completely realistic space sim on a large scale simply doesn't work. If you are at Earth and you want to go to the Moon, you don't want your entry level ion engine to actually take a couple of months to get there. For an Earth-Moon crossing in a game that simulates even just the solar system (let alone any volume of space bigger than a single system!) you need to be able to get there a heck of a lot faster than any current proposed propulsion system that operates within the laws of physics can get there. Even an hour would be a gameplay killer. And, then think about an Earth-Jupiter crossing.
So, to my mind the Stargate isn't a gameplay killer. Really, it's the only way to take the vastness of space and turn it into something you can interact with on a time scale that's reasonable for a game. Now, that said I think the idea of one Stargate per system or something like that is just silly. It gives spawn campers, which sucks. So if I were doing an MMO space sim, I'd have a lot of star gates in every system. For s system like our Solar system, there might be 50 just around Jupiter. A few by each moon. Some in the rings. Some in Jupiter polar orbit. Etc. So, you'll have the whole solar system, and you can fly from one end to the other if it suits you. But, you can also usually have a choice of gates nearby, so you can always get around easily. A gate doesn't imply a 'special' volume of space like you see in some game engines. There are more like freeway onramps.
The only other option for a space sim where you deal with realistic time scales and orbital mechanics, and so in would be constrained to the orbit of a single planet. I spent a little time coming up with a fictional backstory to justify a setting of an extremely densely populated orbital civilisation with no ability to travel to other planets. (It was a bit of a hokey backstory, but it was no thinner than most games! ) Then you can basically have a "Wing Commander" like environment where a small one man ship can fly between a bunch of different starbases in an afternoon. They just need to be absurdly close together compared to what a normal backstory would have.
I mean... she's a fine actress, but is she a qualified astronaut?
Rest assured, friend. I can think of one or two things she could do in zero gravity that would be *well* worth the tax money. And, for those things, she's more than qualified.
They're at least somewhat orthogonal I thought? I'm not American so sometimes I can have really skewed views of how things work down there, but I don't see either as junior to the other. They have a very different set of responsibilities and privileges.
Yes, they are pretty much orthogonal. You only have one governor per state, but you have two senators, so in that sense it is harder to be a Governor. You also have more authority as Governor since you are in charge of the State, and therefore are a decision maker. OTOH, Senators influence national issues, and foreign policy, and are therefore often considered a more "important" position, even if you only get one vote in a large body instead of being in charge of something.
But yeah, Senators have pretty much no say in State affairs, and Governors have no say in Federal affairs, so comparing the positions directly is pretty hard.
Whether its bad or not can only be measured against the results it has delivered for the money or will deliver. Can you outline those in a concise manner for us ?
Well, to be fair, ISS really hasn't accomplished all that much. So, for the same benefit, it was a much better return on investment when compared to invading Iraq.
Wow those plagiarists...what next are you going to tell me that the Holy Grail movie was based on ancient stories as well? Or Life of Brian? Are you telling me that Jesus wasn't an original character?
Umm, those aren't the same joke at all. Just because they both involve selling and dying doesn't mean that they're the same joke. The premise of the older joke is that the man who sold the slave is saying something in a surprised manner which is obviously true. The contrast is between his surprise and the understanding of the audience for the joke that he shouldn't be surprised (since obviously the slave hadn't died before he sold it).
The joke in the Monty Python sketch is that the parrot was dead when it was sold. The humor comes from the absurdness of the idea that someone could be sold a dead parrot without realizing it. The joke is furthered by the sales clerk's obviously futile attempts to claim that the parrot isn't dead and the colorful language used to attempt to convince the clerk that the parrot is dead. This is not at all the same joke. The premise is completely different, as is the type of humor involved. The Greek one is ironic humor. The Monty Python one is absurdist humor.
Certainly, the jokes are different, but there is a thread of commonality between the two. After all, the Greek one can be read as if the vendor is trying to avoid blame for the dead slave, for fear of giving a refund. The elder joke isn't a full sketch like the Monty Python version, so it's impossible to say that's the only reading. But, it is certainly possible to see both jokes being about a vendor trying to avoid blame and a refund for the fact that something he sold is dead.
Personally, my favorite from that old collection is the one about the Barber, the Pedant, and the bald man who go camping in the woods. I may use that at some point.
From my experience, you have to compile anything and everything on a Debian distro to get any up-to-date packages.
Just my two cents.
Ah, see, some of us install Debian and then USE it. It actually has more usefulness that way than if you just install it and then spend all of your time making sure everything is "up to date" with no benefit.
I was under the impression that film cameras cost upwards of 110k for HD with no analog conversion since all the HD transmission methods are digital.
I find what you are saying confusing. Film isn't digital. HD is. (As far as broadcast, or BluRay, or Internet distribution, etc.) The two worlds (film and HD) don't really interact unless you scan the film and make it digital. There's no such thing as film sourced material distributed in HD, without some sort of analog digital conversion.
Something like Red is a digital cinema camera, but it has nowhere to put film in it.
Red makes a big splash here in the tech world, but I'm curious to know how their cameras stack up against anything from Arri or Panavision; they're theoretically the "big dogs" when it comes to filming motion pictures. Do they see an upstart like Red as a threat? Do they have similar products? Yes, Googling is my friend and I could find out models, prices, etc., but what I'm really trying to get at is whether or not these companies are feeling in any way threatened by this announcement, and whether filmmakers see Red's cameras as a way of making blockbuster-quality movies cheaper, better quality, etc.
Compared to other digital cinema camera, Red One is very much a threat. It offers good value for the price, sort of blowing away anything in the same range. Biggest drawback to Red is the fact that you need a Red specific workflow, and the fact that is has a "rolling shutter" which can result in some strange effects. (The top of the frame is sampled earlier in time than the bottom, so a moving camera shooting straight objects can result in a frame full of bendy lines in the final image, and a strobe light can make only part of a frame illuminated under some circumstances)
Compared to film, the biggest difference is probably dynamic range. Red is damned good. It's a hell of a lot better than a standard 8 bit video camera. But, film still handles extreme ranges of brightness better than Red.
Other people will point to other things as the most significant differences, but that's what stands out in my mind. As for the new camera's, I don't know anybody who has shot with them. For now, I can only talk about Red One. Ask again next year when there are some of these new cameras in the wild, and you'll be able to get more information about the drawbacks of shooting with them.
Not exactly, as it's horribly unfair to Microsoft. Think about it, if the contract was released, then all of Microsoft's competitors know just how much they need to undercut Microsoft's price to make the sale on a huge (HUGE) contract. You're putting Microsoft at a competitive disadvantage. This is why most (if not all) government contracts are sealed in this manner.
Signed Someone who works for a government contractor
Yes, good god. Just imagine if players in the market were permitted to know current market rates for specific services. It'd be chaos. It'd be terrible. It'd allow vendors to compete on price for government contracts, and result in government potentially picking a less expensive option for using taxpayer money. Heaven forbid. At least we all know that picking Microsoft is the best possible example for slashdotters of a company that should never be put at a competitive disadvantage!
Which maybe isn't saying much, but this makes more sense than expected. However I doubt that zombies will suddenly drop off the map (Evil Dead 4 where are you!?) just because Obama took over the reigns. Also the line about competing tales of class warfare is total nonsense. Vampires = scary liberal democrats while zombies = brain dead republicans? I think some writer was just trying to be funny while letting his political bias show.
No, Vampire movies are about the danger of a centralised danger preying on the masses, and slowly bleeding them dry. That is, big government and overtaxation. You never have a sole hero in a Vampire movie - it's always a sole villain. It's about the people needing to keep an evil elite in check.
Zombie movies, however, are all about the individual struggling to overcome the masses. You always have fewer heroes than zombies in this type of picture, which strikes a chord with the Republican rhetoric of rugged individualism and self reliance. It's about an elite needing to keep the evil masses in check.
Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. So why isn't selling fucking legal?
The illegality of each of those things is negative. So, when you multiply them together, you are bound to wind up with a result that has positive illegality, duh. It's pretty basic arithmetic. Of course, it does lead to the little known fact that doing any two legal things together is illegal. Aside from selling fucking, driving while blindfolded is another relatively obvious example. Most minor cases of doing two legal things at the same time are never prosecuted, but standing while muttering is technically not legal, thanks to math.
Of course, the circumvent the issue, you just need to do a third legal thing while you whore yourself out, like read a book. Then the extra minus sign multiplies through and they can't do anything to you.
Ummm, literally true, but your comment seems mostly unrelated to the post it is in response to. There was a discussion about container formats, AVI came up in part of that discussion as a container format, and then you told them it was not a codec.
Vista has already lost in the marketplace. More and more companies are skipping Vista to go from XP to Windows 7 because of all the performance and compatability issues with Vista. So comparing Ubuntu (or any OS actually) to Vista is fairly useless. If you want to make a case for business, do it against the OS's that business really uses - in this case Windows XP, or in the future, Windows 7.
Well, considering that "Windows 7" is basically a theme and skin pack for Windows Vista, I guess benchmarking Ubuntu against Vista is the way to prepare for comparing it against 7.
"Investigators should presuppose the existence of a fully functional quantum computer," huh?
Does anyone else here read this as "NSA has a nifty, shiny new toy and are looking for ways to use it"...?
I'm sure a lot of people read it that way. Personally, I read it as, "We know a quantum computer will be practical in the near future, and when that happens we want to be able to hit the ground running while everybody else says 'we has a nifty, shiny new toy and are looking for ways to use it.'"
...and if you're really good you can tell the difference between a 2.5G location update, an incoming call, a GRPS attach/detach and 3G noises.
Hey, just like listening to a Modem connect, and being able to state exactly how fast it is. And here, I figured a skill like that would never be useful again. As soon as I get a GSM phone, you've just picked my next hobby!
What makes you think the source code will be publically available outside the government (and perhaps select "partners" who will help them "understand" the source code?)
Well, leaks will happen, but I think it is more the other way around. If you need to give away the proprietary source to a potentially insecure organisation, you may decide that you will just skip that market. OTOH, you will really want to figure out how to get access to a maret that big. Then, suddenly one of you engineers shows up to work one day bragging about how he got Linux running on your FooBocker 9000b, and you realise you can ship to a major market and not care about giving away the source code.
Without time travel ability, no. "Live content" means "That movie you bought 5 years ago is showing trailers for next summer's movie lineup."
What about putting live ads on the background billboards or changing the brand of burger the hero eats? I would expect updated product placements will be the next wave of live content.
That's actually really disturbing, and shockingly plausible. Thankfully, AFAICT, Blu Ray doesn't really have the ability to do this right. But, I'm sure if there is a "3rd Generation DVD" format that follows BluRay for physical distribution, then we will surely see something much like that. They might even just include 3D tracking data and appropriate alpha channels right on the disc, so that the player just needs to keep a dozen texture maps of current sponsor logos to put on 3D objects in the scene in real time. I'm 99% sure that PS3 already has every bit of hardware it would need for doing this. It can render much more detailed 3D models than would be required, and I expect it has enough internal bandwidth to deal with HD + an alpha channel. The only real limitation is that the Blu Ray spec doesn't include an alpha channel in the video stream, so it would have to be in an additional file, which if it is on the optical disc means seeking back and forth between two files as you try to simultaneously stream the RGB and the Alpha from the same disc. That's the only part which really wouldn't work well.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey man, the thread about the auto industry bailout is elsewhere. :)
A highometer was used to run a standard highometric analysis on a scale from "not" to "curiously." On the standard scale, "relatively" is the seventh mark on the indicator.
There are two similar, but distinct conversations on this topic. You replied to somebody who talked about the common defense because that's in the constitution. The only reason the US Federal government exists is because some people drafted a constitution to create it. It doesn't inherently exist, and it has no inherent authority or duties except what the constitution says. Talking about what the government should be doing according to the constitution is one conversation. It's supposed to be doing (in this sense) some of what you talk about. For example, the constitution explicitly mentions post roads, so an interstate transportation system is among its duties and obligations.
There is also a conversation about what an ideal government in an ideal modern society ought to do. It sounds like this is what you are talking about. It's not a bad conversation. And, frankly I support the idea of the federal government being more involved in education, which you mention. But, it's important to realise that there are two different conversations going on between yourself and the person you replied to.
If the federal government fails to provide for defense, then it is violating the rules that permit it to exist, and the citizens have a right to dissolve it and declare the government null and void. That's the deal. If we get to a world where defense seems like an archaic task for the federal government, we could certainly create an ammendment to change the list of things that the government is "supposed to be doing." But, it's not about "according to who." It really is a concrete, not personal opinion lists of things that the government is supposed to do. (Though, interpretations of that list are of course wildly variable! That's the fun of vague arhcaic language.)
So, I'm not arguing with you. I'm just pointing out that you aren't arguing with the guy you replied to.
I've thought about this problem quite a bit. Unfortunately, a completely realistic space sim on a large scale simply doesn't work. If you are at Earth and you want to go to the Moon, you don't want your entry level ion engine to actually take a couple of months to get there. For an Earth-Moon crossing in a game that simulates even just the solar system (let alone any volume of space bigger than a single system!) you need to be able to get there a heck of a lot faster than any current proposed propulsion system that operates within the laws of physics can get there. Even an hour would be a gameplay killer. And, then think about an Earth-Jupiter crossing.
So, to my mind the Stargate isn't a gameplay killer. Really, it's the only way to take the vastness of space and turn it into something you can interact with on a time scale that's reasonable for a game. Now, that said I think the idea of one Stargate per system or something like that is just silly. It gives spawn campers, which sucks. So if I were doing an MMO space sim, I'd have a lot of star gates in every system. For s system like our Solar system, there might be 50 just around Jupiter. A few by each moon. Some in the rings. Some in Jupiter polar orbit. Etc. So, you'll have the whole solar system, and you can fly from one end to the other if it suits you. But, you can also usually have a choice of gates nearby, so you can always get around easily. A gate doesn't imply a 'special' volume of space like you see in some game engines. There are more like freeway onramps.
The only other option for a space sim where you deal with realistic time scales and orbital mechanics, and so in would be constrained to the orbit of a single planet. I spent a little time coming up with a fictional backstory to justify a setting of an extremely densely populated orbital civilisation with no ability to travel to other planets. (It was a bit of a hokey backstory, but it was no thinner than most games! ) Then you can basically have a "Wing Commander" like environment where a small one man ship can fly between a bunch of different starbases in an afternoon. They just need to be absurdly close together compared to what a normal backstory would have.
For the love of FSM, don't ask a glass of water! ( I just like to be contrary.)
Rest assured, friend. I can think of one or two things she could do in zero gravity that would be *well* worth the tax money. And, for those things, she's more than qualified.
Step One: Assume a spherical Library of Congress. (The rest is left as a trivial exercise.)
Step 3 is a little hazy, but it involves Babylon IV.
Yes, they are pretty much orthogonal. You only have one governor per state, but you have two senators, so in that sense it is harder to be a Governor. You also have more authority as Governor since you are in charge of the State, and therefore are a decision maker. OTOH, Senators influence national issues, and foreign policy, and are therefore often considered a more "important" position, even if you only get one vote in a large body instead of being in charge of something.
But yeah, Senators have pretty much no say in State affairs, and Governors have no say in Federal affairs, so comparing the positions directly is pretty hard.
Well, to be fair, ISS really hasn't accomplished all that much. So, for the same benefit, it was a much better return on investment when compared to invading Iraq.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras#Mithraism_and_Christianity
Certainly, the jokes are different, but there is a thread of commonality between the two. After all, the Greek one can be read as if the vendor is trying to avoid blame for the dead slave, for fear of giving a refund. The elder joke isn't a full sketch like the Monty Python version, so it's impossible to say that's the only reading. But, it is certainly possible to see both jokes being about a vendor trying to avoid blame and a refund for the fact that something he sold is dead.
Personally, my favorite from that old collection is the one about the Barber, the Pedant, and the bald man who go camping in the woods. I may use that at some point.
Ah, see, some of us install Debian and then USE it. It actually has more usefulness that way than if you just install it and then spend all of your time making sure everything is "up to date" with no benefit.
I find what you are saying confusing. Film isn't digital. HD is. (As far as broadcast, or BluRay, or Internet distribution, etc.) The two worlds (film and HD) don't really interact unless you scan the film and make it digital. There's no such thing as film sourced material distributed in HD, without some sort of analog digital conversion.
Something like Red is a digital cinema camera, but it has nowhere to put film in it.
Compared to other digital cinema camera, Red One is very much a threat. It offers good value for the price, sort of blowing away anything in the same range. Biggest drawback to Red is the fact that you need a Red specific workflow, and the fact that is has a "rolling shutter" which can result in some strange effects. (The top of the frame is sampled earlier in time than the bottom, so a moving camera shooting straight objects can result in a frame full of bendy lines in the final image, and a strobe light can make only part of a frame illuminated under some circumstances)
Compared to film, the biggest difference is probably dynamic range. Red is damned good. It's a hell of a lot better than a standard 8 bit video camera. But, film still handles extreme ranges of brightness better than Red.
Other people will point to other things as the most significant differences, but that's what stands out in my mind. As for the new camera's, I don't know anybody who has shot with them. For now, I can only talk about Red One. Ask again next year when there are some of these new cameras in the wild, and you'll be able to get more information about the drawbacks of shooting with them.
Yes, good god. Just imagine if players in the market were permitted to know current market rates for specific services. It'd be chaos. It'd be terrible. It'd allow vendors to compete on price for government contracts, and result in government potentially picking a less expensive option for using taxpayer money. Heaven forbid. At least we all know that picking Microsoft is the best possible example for slashdotters of a company that should never be put at a competitive disadvantage!
No, Vampire movies are about the danger of a centralised danger preying on the masses, and slowly bleeding them dry. That is, big government and overtaxation. You never have a sole hero in a Vampire movie - it's always a sole villain. It's about the people needing to keep an evil elite in check.
Zombie movies, however, are all about the individual struggling to overcome the masses. You always have fewer heroes than zombies in this type of picture, which strikes a chord with the Republican rhetoric of rugged individualism and self reliance. It's about an elite needing to keep the evil masses in check.
I love BSing.
The illegality of each of those things is negative. So, when you multiply them together, you are bound to wind up with a result that has positive illegality, duh. It's pretty basic arithmetic. Of course, it does lead to the little known fact that doing any two legal things together is illegal. Aside from selling fucking, driving while blindfolded is another relatively obvious example. Most minor cases of doing two legal things at the same time are never prosecuted, but standing while muttering is technically not legal, thanks to math.
Of course, the circumvent the issue, you just need to do a third legal thing while you whore yourself out, like read a book. Then the extra minus sign multiplies through and they can't do anything to you.
Ummm, literally true, but your comment seems mostly unrelated to the post it is in response to. There was a discussion about container formats, AVI came up in part of that discussion as a container format, and then you told them it was not a codec.
Well, considering that "Windows 7" is basically a theme and skin pack for Windows Vista, I guess benchmarking Ubuntu against Vista is the way to prepare for comparing it against 7.
I'm sure a lot of people read it that way. Personally, I read it as, "We know a quantum computer will be practical in the near future, and when that happens we want to be able to hit the ground running while everybody else says 'we has a nifty, shiny new toy and are looking for ways to use it.'"
Hey, just like listening to a Modem connect, and being able to state exactly how fast it is. And here, I figured a skill like that would never be useful again. As soon as I get a GSM phone, you've just picked my next hobby!
Yes, it'll be a sad hobby.
The revelation of the divinity of the universal medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves.
Well, leaks will happen, but I think it is more the other way around. If you need to give away the proprietary source to a potentially insecure organisation, you may decide that you will just skip that market. OTOH, you will really want to figure out how to get access to a maret that big. Then, suddenly one of you engineers shows up to work one day bragging about how he got Linux running on your FooBocker 9000b, and you realise you can ship to a major market and not care about giving away the source code.
Net win for open source.
That's actually really disturbing, and shockingly plausible. Thankfully, AFAICT, Blu Ray doesn't really have the ability to do this right. But, I'm sure if there is a "3rd Generation DVD" format that follows BluRay for physical distribution, then we will surely see something much like that. They might even just include 3D tracking data and appropriate alpha channels right on the disc, so that the player just needs to keep a dozen texture maps of current sponsor logos to put on 3D objects in the scene in real time. I'm 99% sure that PS3 already has every bit of hardware it would need for doing this. It can render much more detailed 3D models than would be required, and I expect it has enough internal bandwidth to deal with HD + an alpha channel. The only real limitation is that the Blu Ray spec doesn't include an alpha channel in the video stream, so it would have to be in an additional file, which if it is on the optical disc means seeking back and forth between two files as you try to simultaneously stream the RGB and the Alpha from the same disc. That's the only part which really wouldn't work well.