'General purpose computer' is the key statement there. General purpose implies programable BY THE USER.
Hey great! That means my car is a PC. I'm the end user. I program it by pushing the gas, adjusting the radio, braking, using the GPS, and turning the wheel. It has 17 different micro-processor chips in it (for air-bags, engine, sound system, ABS...) Most modern cars have about 15- 20 chips in them.
That makes Volkswagen the worlds biggest PC maker.
...government can monitor and kill you in any number of other ways?
Actually, this makes it easier for drones to kill you. Since it defines public airspace as "anything above your shoelaces," they could just fly a big jet drone right through your chest and then say, "Sorry about that, but we were flying our drone in public airspace. What the hell was your body doing up there??"
Can North Korea demand that YouTube take down any video clips of Kim Jung Il singing "I'm so Ronery" from Team America, as that is clearly an unauthorised reproduction of the Dear leader singing?
No. The real Kim Jung Il never actually sang "I'm so Ronrey." He used to sing: "Your Little Body's Slowly Breaking Down" from "Evita" "I Kissed a Girl" "Walk Like an Egyptian" "Easy To Be Hard"
and "America" from "West Side Story"
I play both. Does that mean someone needs to open the box I'm in and see what game I am actually playing to determine my level of manliness at any one point?
No.
If you're living in a box there is no need to check your manliness.
It's possible that by moving the pedal so the cyclist's legs are in a different position during the pedal cycle, it's possible that his muscles could more effectively power the pedals.
Except no change has been made to the pedal cycle...
Exactly. The easy way to think of this is this way: Weld a piece of straight metal onto this thing from the pedal to the center of rotation (just like a normal straight crank) so you have a "triangle like" assembly. Now pedal. See! Mechanically, it's the same thing. (Except a little heavier and a lot stronger.) Now, saw away the Z-Torque crank. See. Same thing again.
This assumes the Z-Torque crank is inflexible. If the Z-Torque is flexing, then it is absorbing some of the the rider's energy and turning it into waste heat. (Until it fails.)
Looks like a mining operation, with the underground entrance at the bottom of the U shaped structure.
You're correct. Mining and refining.
Probably something with a low recovery ratio, like a rare earth. This makes it wasteful to ship the bulk of it elsewhere for refining, so it's done on site.
... for a few brief milliseconds the software takes over the firing decision.
You are correct. The shooter's initial action is to put the target designator on target. The scope does all the math on windage, barrel heat, hold over, etc. and produces a firing solution. Then the shooter holds down the trigger, which doesn't fire the gun, he just authorizes the scope to fire when the gun is in the right position. The shooter just wiggles around and tries to get the gun in the right position, and when the scope decides the gun is in the correct position, it fires the gun.
One cool benefit is that you can keep the same target designated and just keep putting round after round on the same target.
It's actually well understood. It's also called sea-sickness. To sense our position in space, we combine data from our visual cortex with data from our inner-ear. If the data do not correspond, we get nauseous. Imagine you're below-deck on a ship. Your visual cortex is saying everything is standing still. Your inner-ear says things are rocking back and forth. This is also why you might get car-sick if you are looking down reading, instead of looking at the horizon.
There is actually a useful reason for getting sick, too. As evolving animals (without ships or planes or cars) we were never in a situation where the visual cortex and the inner-ear disagreed; except when we ate something bad. (Like rotten food.) Ever been really, really drunk? Hanging onto the spinning ground? Puking? Same thing. If the visual cortex and inner-ear data disagree, the body 'knows' you've eaten something bad, and starts getting rid of it.
You are correct in identifying frame-rate as being part of the problem/solution. The solution is reducing latency, the amount of time between turning your head and the display refreshing with the correct perspective. Ultimately, you need to reduce the amount of time to resolve the head-tracker's position, and quickly update the display.
...The only solution is to have the VR helmet also hijack the inner-ear.
A simpler solution is to just reduce the latency of the tracker/display refresh. This issue was more significant in the past because tracers were sluggish and displays were slow. With today's graphics card running at 60+FPS and fast optical trackers it's much less of an issue.
Of course, just as some people are prone to car-sickness and sea-sickness, the same people are vulnerable to nausea in VR.
I've been gaming with a stereo HMD VR rig with magnetic tracking for 11 years. Some of my friends enjoy it, a few get queasy.
I wonder how evolutionists would explain why honey bees never evolved out of this self-destructive behaviour.
The worker bees are the ones with the stingers, but they have no part in fertilizing the queens. So, their sacrifice is more like an animal chewing off it's leg to escape a trap (in an evolutionary sense.) They support the hive - but don't contribute to the hive genetics.
It is the drones, not the workers, who do the fertilization of the queens, and therefore play a primary role in evolutionary progress.
...24 frames is a compromise that seems to adequately emulate the normal reality of human eye...
???
The "normal reality of human eye" is presented to us at an "infinite" frame rate.
24 FPS was just the slowest rate they could find (saving film stock) that could be used successfully with sync sound systems.
24 FPS was not chosen because it looked good.
And BTW, You've never seen a movie at 24 FPS (unless you watch on a Moviola.) Theaters project film "double-flashed" (to reduce flicker) so every film you've ever seen is blinking onto the screen at 48 FPS, but with every two flashes repeating the same frame information.
People going about their daily business in a foreign country not at war with us, who would probably never earn enough in their lifetime just to get the planefare to the US together, are "insurgents"?
Slashdot Mirror
'General purpose computer' is the key statement there. General purpose implies programable BY THE USER.
Hey great! That means my car is a PC.
I'm the end user. I program it by pushing the gas, adjusting the radio, braking, using the GPS, and turning the wheel. It has 17 different micro-processor chips in it (for air-bags, engine, sound system, ABS...) Most modern cars have about 15- 20 chips in them.
That makes Volkswagen the worlds biggest PC maker.
You can't track someone with a drone that your typical city can afford.
So you're saying that a police helicopter with trained pilot is less expensive to operate than a drone?
...government can monitor and kill you in any number of other ways?
Actually, this makes it easier for drones to kill you. Since it defines public airspace as "anything above your shoelaces," they could just fly a big jet drone right through your chest and then say, "Sorry about that, but we were flying our drone in public airspace. What the hell was your body doing up there??"
...Nobody in China is so big that they can't die in a "plain crash".
Or, if you're a real big-shot, you can have an exceptional crash!
Can North Korea demand that YouTube take down any video clips of Kim Jung Il singing "I'm so Ronery" from Team America, as that is clearly an unauthorised reproduction of the Dear leader singing?
No. The real Kim Jung Il never actually sang "I'm so Ronrey." He used to sing:
"Your Little Body's Slowly Breaking Down" from "Evita"
"I Kissed a Girl"
"Walk Like an Egyptian"
"Easy To Be Hard"
and
"America" from "West Side Story"
Yeah - but have you tried their "Tractor Sim" Awesome!!
http://fotoden.info/sites/default/files/styles/frontpage_photo_landscape/public/42ap120404b187_0.jpg
If you tell a priest you're sick he'll tell you to see a doctor.
...and if you tell him you're pregnant, he'll say, "Holy Crap! I thought you were a little boy!"
I play both. Does that mean someone needs to open the box I'm in and see what game I am actually playing to determine my level of manliness at any one point?
No.
If you're living in a box there is no need to check your manliness.
The Void Captain's Tale by Norman Spinrad has FTL powered by female orgasm. Anybody know of other unorthodox propulsion methods from SF?
Aside from whatever the hell was involved in moving the ships in Cordwainer Smith's stories. Cats fending off meta-dimensional dragons in Space3?
There is the "Infinite Improbability Drive"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Infinite_Improbability_Drive
It's possible that by moving the pedal so the cyclist's legs are in a different position during the pedal cycle, it's possible that his muscles could more effectively power the pedals.
Except no change has been made to the pedal cycle...
Exactly. The easy way to think of this is this way:
Weld a piece of straight metal onto this thing from the pedal to the center of rotation (just like a normal straight crank) so you have a "triangle like" assembly. Now pedal. See! Mechanically, it's the same thing. (Except a little heavier and a lot stronger.)
Now, saw away the Z-Torque crank. See. Same thing again.
This assumes the Z-Torque crank is inflexible. If the Z-Torque is flexing, then it is absorbing some of the the rider's energy and turning it into waste heat. (Until it fails.)
The material is not perfectly rigid, so the shape affects its deformation under load.
Which means the cyclist will be wasting energy deforming the metal of the crank, which will just be dissipated as heat.
Until the metal fails, of course, and the broken crank cuts their leg open.
Looks like a mining operation, with the underground entrance at the bottom of the U shaped structure.
You're correct. Mining and refining.
Probably something with a low recovery ratio, like a rare earth. This makes it wasteful to ship the bulk of it elsewhere for refining, so it's done on site.
Some strip mining:
http://goo.gl/maps/ENccv
Post-process waste:
http://goo.gl/maps/cxjrV
... for a few brief milliseconds the software takes over the firing decision.
You are correct.
The shooter's initial action is to put the target designator on target. The scope does all the math on windage, barrel heat, hold over, etc. and produces a firing solution.
Then the shooter holds down the trigger, which doesn't fire the gun, he just authorizes the scope to fire when the gun is in the right position. The shooter just wiggles around and tries to get the gun in the right position, and when the scope decides the gun is in the correct position, it fires the gun.
One cool benefit is that you can keep the same target designated and just keep putting round after round on the same target.
It's actually well understood.
It's also called sea-sickness.
To sense our position in space, we combine data from our visual cortex with data from our inner-ear.
If the data do not correspond, we get nauseous.
Imagine you're below-deck on a ship. Your visual cortex is saying everything is standing still. Your inner-ear says things are rocking back and forth.
This is also why you might get car-sick if you are looking down reading, instead of looking at the horizon.
There is actually a useful reason for getting sick, too. As evolving animals (without ships or planes or cars) we were never in a situation where the visual cortex and the inner-ear disagreed; except when we ate something bad. (Like rotten food.)
Ever been really, really drunk? Hanging onto the spinning ground? Puking? Same thing.
If the visual cortex and inner-ear data disagree, the body 'knows' you've eaten something bad, and starts getting rid of it.
You are correct in identifying frame-rate as being part of the problem/solution.
The solution is reducing latency, the amount of time between turning your head and the display refreshing with the correct perspective. Ultimately, you need to reduce the amount of time to resolve the head-tracker's position, and quickly update the display.
I can't wait to try out the Rift!
...The only solution is to have the VR helmet also hijack the inner-ear.
A simpler solution is to just reduce the latency of the tracker/display refresh.
This issue was more significant in the past because tracers were sluggish and displays were slow.
With today's graphics card running at 60+FPS and fast optical trackers it's much less of an issue.
Of course, just as some people are prone to car-sickness and sea-sickness, the same people are vulnerable to nausea in VR.
I've been gaming with a stereo HMD VR rig with magnetic tracking for 11 years. Some of my friends enjoy it, a few get queasy.
Actually what it shows that you have never watched Futurama.
Is that what you church endorses as an alternative to scientific education?...
You don't understand. Futurama is your core scientific education.
School is just an alternative to that.
P.S. => I already wax and bleach my asshole and encourage everyone else to do the same.
OK... but don't expect all of us to wax and bleach your asshole for free.
I wonder how evolutionists would explain why honey bees never evolved out of this self-destructive behaviour.
The worker bees are the ones with the stingers, but they have no part in fertilizing the queens. So, their sacrifice is more like an animal chewing off it's leg to escape a trap (in an evolutionary sense.) They support the hive - but don't contribute to the hive genetics.
It is the drones, not the workers, who do the fertilization of the queens, and therefore play a primary role in evolutionary progress.
No, the bees just get really pissed off by the current, and it encourages them to sting the glass.
I can't help picturing the angry bees buzzing around saying, "Schieß dem Fenster! Schieß dem Fenster!"
I'll have you know that I'm an expert on bee venom and bee venom accessories.
Then per Slashdot bylaws, you are not permitted to post in this thread.
Great reference!!
Wait, does this mean Jobs is alive -- and we're all dead...??!
My epitaph will probably read something like "who?" but it is better then "well, he did give us the iPod but he was such a dick".
Someday his entire listing in the history books will read something like, "Worked briefly with the great Steve Wozniak. See: Wozniak, Steve."
Its inner hull is made of titanium and it can dive to 3000 feet.
Any ship can dive to 3000 feet.
It's not drowning everyone and coming back to the surface that's the hard part...
...24 frames is a compromise that seems to adequately emulate the normal reality of human eye...
???
The "normal reality of human eye" is presented to us at an "infinite" frame rate.
24 FPS was just the slowest rate they could find (saving film stock) that could be used successfully with sync sound systems.
24 FPS was not chosen because it looked good.
And BTW, You've never seen a movie at 24 FPS (unless you watch on a Moviola.) Theaters project film "double-flashed" (to reduce flicker) so every film you've ever seen is blinking onto the screen at 48 FPS, but with every two flashes repeating the same frame information.
People going about their daily business in a foreign country not at war with us, who would probably never earn enough in their lifetime just to get the planefare to the US together, are "insurgents"?
Yeah. Like this guy:
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1188027.1354977866!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/libya19e-1-web.jpg
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/fbi-questions-suspect-benghazi-attack-hours-article-1.1226081