DocVerse says:That's right ladies, I'm dating Google now. I know there are rumors of him having other girls, but what can I say? He doesn't follow any of the rules! Besides, I hear his data centers are HUGE!
Google:Yeah boys, DocVerse is a cute little thing to be sure. I'll protect her as long as she puts out.
Microsoft:You damn kids with your free spirited sex and cloud-computing-rock-and-roll! Get off my lawn you patchouli-scented, long-haired hippies!
Many people also don't give a damn about where the energy comes from. They want to know if they can hook it up to their car and/or cell phone. They want to know if they have to visit a gas pump to make it work. I'm not saying I disagree with you on the semantics. To us sci/tech literate folk its annoying to see something as basic as energy conservation ignored in speak. However, most people don't care about anything other than how easy it is to use, and how cheap it is. The media, even the science/tech media, tends to pander to this attitude.
I often think that our society's vision for teachers is to remove all individuality, all wiggle-room, all deviations from the norm.
I think you could remove the teachers requirement in that statement and be pretty accurate. Society's vision seems to remove deviation from the norm in all walks of life.
I've been living in Cali all my life. This state is, by far, one of the most beautiful blends of geography and wonder that I think you can find. We have everything from mountains to beaches to deserts and forests. We have Big Trees. We have Yosemite. We have Death Valley. We have Tahoe. We have Mount Shasta.
In the spring, you can drive up and down I-5 or highway 99 and see orange trees and fruit orchards as far as the eye can see. Our state produces one metric fuckton of food annually. We have Silicon Valley. We are home to one of the only GEO capable launch sites in the world. California is, in my opinion, a marvelous place.
Now, that said, there is something extraordinarily wrong with California society right now. I hope we can fix it. This place is worth fighting for. But I agree, the general populace seems to be plagued with some sort of mental illness. It's sad.
It looks like an nifty device, I will grant that. Nonetheless, I grow wary of buying anything from Microsoft these days. It seems like that company has become absolute artists at nickel and diming their customers. For instance, on the first Xbox, you could save guest profiles and, as long as one housemate had an Xbox Live membership, you could host those guests in games. Out comes the 360 and now you can no longer save guest profiles. You have to reset yours settings every damn login if you piggyback on your roomate's account. Then there are their operating systems. Granted, Windows 7 seems to have turned out alright. But they rushed Vista so bad they FUBARed the whole stupid thing and had to rerelease (and charge money for) an entire new OS to fix their screw ups. Again, they profit at the expense of their consumers. Their PC games (Games for Windows or whatever that PR tag is on PC game boxes now) have increasingly pain in the ass DRM. I don't even bother to buy the stupid things anymore because it is easier just to get a hack copy from the internet complete with DRM circumvention kits.
As much as I love to blame all of my tech problems on Gates' legacy, I will admit that Microsoft turns out some top quality products from time to time. Their ergonomic keyboards are fantastic. This tablet looks impressive. I just find it hard to give my money to a company that is so skilled at financially raping their consumer base. Sorry MS, good products or not, you've burned my trust one too many times.
So, I realize slashdot doesn't have superbly high classification standards, but how in the hell is this categorized under your rights online? Is ScuttleMonkey really just a perl script that files anything with the word patent in it under YRO? Shouldn't this be filed under something like Science maybe, or Hardware, or hell, even Idle or Interview? I really have no comprehension of how an interest piece video could have anything to do with my rights on or offline.....
Nature seeks a state of equilibrium eh? Are you sure you're viewing the system in a large enough context? Granted, it is typical for the universe to evolve towards a state of higher entropy (moving towards equilibrium). However, that state, in the large scope of things, probably doesn't involve a nice, balanced, life supporting, self-sustaining planet like Earth. It probably involves lots of tiny subatomic particles.
The point is, it's easy to look at our planet and say, "See, the Earth seeks equilibrium." I don't know that is true though. It may appear to be the case because, to us, the world appears to be a very large system. As such, from our perspective, it is easy to see such a large system as not having any forms of degeneracy (possibly because the world is still very young, much like our own race was some 20,000 years ago when we supposedly worked in equilibrium). However, given a broad enough context, it may be that this world is actually burning itself in a very unsustainable fashion. Perhaps that progressive decay towards more entropy is really the only true, 'nature,' in the universe. That is to say, just because it looks like this world is in equilibrium, it may not be. There are still quite a few world-scale phenomena that we do not understand fully to be able to make such claims.
As such, I think decrying our Darwinian (read competitive) instincts as unnatural because they don't work into a basic idea of world equilibrium (a theory that doesn't seem to have reasonably large scope evidence to support it) is nothing more than a thought exercise.
So when I first read the headline and article, my initial question was, "Could similar dyes be used to route light around an object, hence creating a cloaking device?"
Unfortunately, the article didn't hint at this possibility at all. However, I did pick this up:
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
So DARPA's helping fund it eh? In answer to my own question then, "Yes!"
Leave it to DARPA to fund the development of a cloaking device and play it off as a computer breakthrough. I, for one, am stoked.
Well the approach to understanding the Atlantic, 'dead zone,' makes sense. Pigs have, so far as I understand, been used for all sorts of science where using humans is not practical or ethical. For instance, if I recall correctly, various pig organs can and are used for human organ transplants. So sure, using pigs for this sort of thing makes sense. However, I do have a question.
What are the reasons for better understanding corpse decomposition in the oceans?
It sounds like this may be a study to figure out if human corpses end up drifting to a common location (much like that floating garbage patch in the pacific). If so, is this primarily a search and rescue type study? Are they trying to see if the bodies of missing persons can be dug up from the ocean depths? Is there some other reason for doing a study like this?
Don't get me wrong, I am all for knowledge for it's own sake. I would just like to know what the motivations are behind this study.
TFA states:
"If you need to know how long it's been since death, if you're looking at the remains and there are marks on them, you need to find out - how did those marks come about?"
So I suppose that is a partial answer to my question. I am still curious though, if there is any spin off science that could be gathered from this kind of study. Surely there are some marine biologists out there that could use the data gathered here to better understand this particular ecological niche. Any other ideas?
Well Bennett, it's not something I would be interested in but, sure, it seems like it's a decent idea. However, I do wonder why you think it should be wrapped in 3rd party anti-virus software like Norton when it seems like it would be easier to just wrap it in the browser itself. In fact, you could write a little script/program that interfaces with the browser and mods it to do what you want. In fact, you could call this program an, "add-on," as it would add on functionality to the browser. Maybe you could even register it with the owners of the browser itself to get it approved so that users know its trust worthy....Do you see what I am getting at here?
It seems like you have the technical chops regarding how the internet routes traffic to design a piece of software like this. So why not write a Firefox or Chrome (or even both) add on for the browsers that do just what you are asking for? I understand its a good idea and, I suppose, maybe you want some input regarding the best way to implement this function. However, as per usual Bennet, your long winded rants/ideas that you post to slashdot just come off as a male peacock flashing his tail feathers amongst other male peacocks. That is to say, it seems like you're just whoring for attention saying, "Look at me, look at me, look how clever I can be!"
So stop typing about it and demonstrate it. Crack out the old Camel book (or whatever O'reilly pet you prefer) and get to coding. Otherwise, please spare your fellow 'dotters the long winded theatrics.
Teenagers texting will look like a first base coach on crack.
It will also bring a while new range of discussion topics regarding, "sexting," that new, scary, immoral thing that the news agencies have been decrying to be the downfall of my generations morality for the last 2 years now.
But honestly, if a new device or technology can be used for sex, teenagers will be the ones to figure out how. I would wager that skinput will be no different in this regard.
Actually, I think that name might be more effective than people think in the long run. Believe it or not, the younger generations (30- or so) really respect the kind of in-your-face, disgracefully honest type of naming convention displayed by that title. Something to keep in mind is that the younger generations are the ones that adopted iPods and MP3 players and file downloading tenaciously from the get go. These younger generations also tend to be the ones getting sued by the media conglomerates right now. These younger generations are also the ones that have been raised in an increasingly snake-oil salesman consumer culture. As such, we have become extraordinarily numb and cynical to anything that is packaged in a polite, easy to digest manner. We ignore everything that screams glamor and goodness because we have been screwed and bullshitted from a young age. We are addicted to dramatic, flourishy titles because they appeal to our sense of absurdity that this whole world sells. As such, I think the Pirate Party title appeals to quite a few folk in my age demographic precisely because it is ridiculous and absurd and, for us, life has been one big joke for as long as we can remember.
Now granted, this only represents one small demographic, but remember that college-aged and young people are a very powerful voting demographic. The mere fact that very few of us do turn out to vote shows this. It is refleced every campaign year by politicians trying to get us roused and to the ballot boxes. Hell, just look at P-Diddy's, "Vote or Die," campaign. The powers that be realize that we younger folk have quite a bit of voting power in our hands if we ever decide to use it. As such, they try to swing us in their favor. If the Pirate Party can win us over with a satirical name from the get go, you can be darned certain than incumbents will start listening to the issue stances taken by the Pirate Party.
Now when I buy something, be it a movie, music or a game I seem to own nothing less than the packaging, whereas the items I desire remains the property of those who sold it to me and I am denied any freedom in it's usage.
Start shopping on craigslist, or ebay, or your county's equivalent. While you can't find everything there, and everything you can find there is second-hand, you actually end up owning anything you do buy. You also tend to get things at a much cheaper price, where taxes are overlooked often, and, if you don't abuse the crap out of the item, you can resell for near the same value you purchased it for.
Seriously, if you are tired of being treated like a rights-less consumer, start buying stuff on craigslist. I would recommend, however, that one of the first things you buy is a nice tool set, as you will be needing that to keep the rest of your stuff functioning. =)
Slashdot Mirror
DocVerse says: That's right ladies, I'm dating Google now. I know there are rumors of him having other girls, but what can I say? He doesn't follow any of the rules! Besides, I hear his data centers are HUGE!
Google: Yeah boys, DocVerse is a cute little thing to be sure. I'll protect her as long as she puts out.
Microsoft: You damn kids with your free spirited sex and cloud-computing-rock-and-roll! Get off my lawn you patchouli-scented, long-haired hippies!
Let's trade some curry and hookahs for blue jeans
If I am giving up my Levi's I want some exotic Persian women in return. They can keep their damned hookahs. =P
You are not going to put these in your gaming rig
Tell that to the gamers with Epeen insecurities.
You can keep your laser. I want a lightning glove already.
Many people also don't give a damn about where the energy comes from. They want to know if they can hook it up to their car and/or cell phone. They want to know if they have to visit a gas pump to make it work. I'm not saying I disagree with you on the semantics. To us sci/tech literate folk its annoying to see something as basic as energy conservation ignored in speak. However, most people don't care about anything other than how easy it is to use, and how cheap it is. The media, even the science/tech media, tends to pander to this attitude.
I often think that our society's vision for teachers is to remove all individuality, all wiggle-room, all deviations from the norm.
I think you could remove the teachers requirement in that statement and be pretty accurate. Society's vision seems to remove deviation from the norm in all walks of life.
I've been living in Cali all my life. This state is, by far, one of the most beautiful blends of geography and wonder that I think you can find. We have everything from mountains to beaches to deserts and forests. We have Big Trees. We have Yosemite. We have Death Valley. We have Tahoe. We have Mount Shasta.
In the spring, you can drive up and down I-5 or highway 99 and see orange trees and fruit orchards as far as the eye can see. Our state produces one metric fuckton of food annually. We have Silicon Valley. We are home to one of the only GEO capable launch sites in the world. California is, in my opinion, a marvelous place.
Now, that said, there is something extraordinarily wrong with California society right now. I hope we can fix it. This place is worth fighting for. But I agree, the general populace seems to be plagued with some sort of mental illness. It's sad.
A public "traffic violation registry"?
If they do that, I'll be proudly vying for one of the top ten on the list. =D
It looks like an nifty device, I will grant that. Nonetheless, I grow wary of buying anything from Microsoft these days. It seems like that company has become absolute artists at nickel and diming their customers. For instance, on the first Xbox, you could save guest profiles and, as long as one housemate had an Xbox Live membership, you could host those guests in games. Out comes the 360 and now you can no longer save guest profiles. You have to reset yours settings every damn login if you piggyback on your roomate's account. Then there are their operating systems. Granted, Windows 7 seems to have turned out alright. But they rushed Vista so bad they FUBARed the whole stupid thing and had to rerelease (and charge money for) an entire new OS to fix their screw ups. Again, they profit at the expense of their consumers. Their PC games (Games for Windows or whatever that PR tag is on PC game boxes now) have increasingly pain in the ass DRM. I don't even bother to buy the stupid things anymore because it is easier just to get a hack copy from the internet complete with DRM circumvention kits.
As much as I love to blame all of my tech problems on Gates' legacy, I will admit that Microsoft turns out some top quality products from time to time. Their ergonomic keyboards are fantastic. This tablet looks impressive. I just find it hard to give my money to a company that is so skilled at financially raping their consumer base. Sorry MS, good products or not, you've burned my trust one too many times.
They wanted to study the effects the corpses had on whatever life existed in the dead zones, not create more corpses by feeding it poison.
I think you've watched Ghost Busters one too many times guys....
So, I realize slashdot doesn't have superbly high classification standards, but how in the hell is this categorized under your rights online? Is ScuttleMonkey really just a perl script that files anything with the word patent in it under YRO? Shouldn't this be filed under something like Science maybe, or Hardware, or hell, even Idle or Interview? I really have no comprehension of how an interest piece video could have anything to do with my rights on or offline. ....
Weird.
Sounds like it's time to dust off the ol' Monroe Doctrine then. Do you think it would be taken more seriously in pdf or html format online? =)
Nature seeks a state of equilibrium eh? Are you sure you're viewing the system in a large enough context? Granted, it is typical for the universe to evolve towards a state of higher entropy (moving towards equilibrium). However, that state, in the large scope of things, probably doesn't involve a nice, balanced, life supporting, self-sustaining planet like Earth. It probably involves lots of tiny subatomic particles.
The point is, it's easy to look at our planet and say, "See, the Earth seeks equilibrium." I don't know that is true though. It may appear to be the case because, to us, the world appears to be a very large system. As such, from our perspective, it is easy to see such a large system as not having any forms of degeneracy (possibly because the world is still very young, much like our own race was some 20,000 years ago when we supposedly worked in equilibrium). However, given a broad enough context, it may be that this world is actually burning itself in a very unsustainable fashion. Perhaps that progressive decay towards more entropy is really the only true, 'nature,' in the universe. That is to say, just because it looks like this world is in equilibrium, it may not be. There are still quite a few world-scale phenomena that we do not understand fully to be able to make such claims.
As such, I think decrying our Darwinian (read competitive) instincts as unnatural because they don't work into a basic idea of world equilibrium (a theory that doesn't seem to have reasonably large scope evidence to support it) is nothing more than a thought exercise.
Unfortunately, the article didn't hint at this possibility at all. However, I did pick this up:
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
So DARPA's helping fund it eh? In answer to my own question then, "Yes!"
Leave it to DARPA to fund the development of a cloaking device and play it off as a computer breakthrough. I, for one, am stoked.
I think that, 'Mature,' adjective that you slapped on there may be a stretch. It's just plain bullying, same as grade school
Hey! That was the only place I had to store all of my Geocities content you insensitive clod!
What are the reasons for better understanding corpse decomposition in the oceans?
It sounds like this may be a study to figure out if human corpses end up drifting to a common location (much like that floating garbage patch in the pacific). If so, is this primarily a search and rescue type study? Are they trying to see if the bodies of missing persons can be dug up from the ocean depths? Is there some other reason for doing a study like this?
Don't get me wrong, I am all for knowledge for it's own sake. I would just like to know what the motivations are behind this study.
TFA states:
"If you need to know how long it's been since death, if you're looking at the remains and there are marks on them, you need to find out - how did those marks come about?"
So I suppose that is a partial answer to my question. I am still curious though, if there is any spin off science that could be gathered from this kind of study. Surely there are some marine biologists out there that could use the data gathered here to better understand this particular ecological niche. Any other ideas?
Well Bennett, it's not something I would be interested in but, sure, it seems like it's a decent idea. However, I do wonder why you think it should be wrapped in 3rd party anti-virus software like Norton when it seems like it would be easier to just wrap it in the browser itself. In fact, you could write a little script/program that interfaces with the browser and mods it to do what you want. In fact, you could call this program an, "add-on," as it would add on functionality to the browser. Maybe you could even register it with the owners of the browser itself to get it approved so that users know its trust worthy....Do you see what I am getting at here?
It seems like you have the technical chops regarding how the internet routes traffic to design a piece of software like this. So why not write a Firefox or Chrome (or even both) add on for the browsers that do just what you are asking for? I understand its a good idea and, I suppose, maybe you want some input regarding the best way to implement this function. However, as per usual Bennet, your long winded rants/ideas that you post to slashdot just come off as a male peacock flashing his tail feathers amongst other male peacocks. That is to say, it seems like you're just whoring for attention saying, "Look at me, look at me, look how clever I can be!"
So stop typing about it and demonstrate it. Crack out the old Camel book (or whatever O'reilly pet you prefer) and get to coding. Otherwise, please spare your fellow 'dotters the long winded theatrics.
Teenagers texting will look like a first base coach on crack.
It will also bring a while new range of discussion topics regarding, "sexting," that new, scary, immoral thing that the news agencies have been decrying to be the downfall of my generations morality for the last 2 years now.
But honestly, if a new device or technology can be used for sex, teenagers will be the ones to figure out how. I would wager that skinput will be no different in this regard.
Actually, I think that name might be more effective than people think in the long run. Believe it or not, the younger generations (30- or so) really respect the kind of in-your-face, disgracefully honest type of naming convention displayed by that title. Something to keep in mind is that the younger generations are the ones that adopted iPods and MP3 players and file downloading tenaciously from the get go. These younger generations also tend to be the ones getting sued by the media conglomerates right now. These younger generations are also the ones that have been raised in an increasingly snake-oil salesman consumer culture. As such, we have become extraordinarily numb and cynical to anything that is packaged in a polite, easy to digest manner. We ignore everything that screams glamor and goodness because we have been screwed and bullshitted from a young age. We are addicted to dramatic, flourishy titles because they appeal to our sense of absurdity that this whole world sells. As such, I think the Pirate Party title appeals to quite a few folk in my age demographic precisely because it is ridiculous and absurd and, for us, life has been one big joke for as long as we can remember.
Now granted, this only represents one small demographic, but remember that college-aged and young people are a very powerful voting demographic. The mere fact that very few of us do turn out to vote shows this. It is refleced every campaign year by politicians trying to get us roused and to the ballot boxes. Hell, just look at P-Diddy's, "Vote or Die," campaign. The powers that be realize that we younger folk have quite a bit of voting power in our hands if we ever decide to use it. As such, they try to swing us in their favor. If the Pirate Party can win us over with a satirical name from the get go, you can be darned certain than incumbents will start listening to the issue stances taken by the Pirate Party.
I'm not sure it's such a bad title at all really.
Now when I buy something, be it a movie, music or a game I seem to own nothing less than the packaging, whereas the items I desire remains the property of those who sold it to me and I am denied any freedom in it's usage.
Start shopping on craigslist, or ebay, or your county's equivalent. While you can't find everything there, and everything you can find there is second-hand, you actually end up owning anything you do buy. You also tend to get things at a much cheaper price, where taxes are overlooked often, and, if you don't abuse the crap out of the item, you can resell for near the same value you purchased it for.
Seriously, if you are tired of being treated like a rights-less consumer, start buying stuff on craigslist. I would recommend, however, that one of the first things you buy is a nice tool set, as you will be needing that to keep the rest of your stuff functioning. =)
The robot discussed by the article isn't a clever hack. It's actually the bastard child of Randall Munroe's pets.
Thank you! I'll definitely check this out.
Nothing from Austria could possibly be evil!
My Governator agrees with you...Guess where I live?