>>Although I admit that the ban on Burqas (face-covering thing for women) seems a ban on religion, the facial expression is a vital part in conversation
That's hilarious.
I love anyone that makes statements of the form, "Well, yes, it's a restriction on a fundamental right, but by golly, I don't like how those stupid people believe those stupid things, and I want to FIX it for them!"
France also banned students from wearing crucifixes in schools. Will you defend that as well? Does a thin chain around the neck prevent you from conversing with them, too?
Honestly, Europe is reacting (quite rightly in some cases) to the unintended consequences of immigration. However, instead of changing their immigration policies, they make stupid, anti-human rights, gestures like these.
Re:United States Government Accountability Office?
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 1
>>We'll never have a fully independent and reliable press in the US until they are subsidized by the government. Yes, you read that correctly. SUBSIDIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT
Yes, let's move to a socialist press! That will make things so much better.
I sincerely look forward to the days my fellow Americans and I can all eat cheese and surrender at the drop of a hat.
Re:United States Government Accountability Office?
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 1
>>While I am sure there are some positions that are overpaid and won government contracts for more money than the minimal BS they're doing, the bigger issue should be : why do we need this many programs top secret?
Because the Bell model for classifying secrets is a really, really coarse model that doesn't work well in the real world. The WaPo article mentions janitors having Top Secret access. Why? So that they can gain physical access to the labs they clean. Should they be looking at Top Secret data? Of course not. ACL-based systems work a lot better in practice.
"Top Secret" sounds scary and cool, but it doesn't really mean very much these days. Graduate from college, get a job working IT for the military or a contractor and POOF, you have Top Secret access. (POOF = A fairly detailed background check, but still.)
The WaPo article breezes over this, making it sound like there's this shadow conspiracy of people with the spooky-cool "Top Secret" classification, when really it's about as special as getting an A+ certification these days. Maybe it used to mean something, but it doesn't much any more.
>>Please, now, apply that to your beloved corporations. >>Who again, is "wasting" all this money???
Corporations will always work to maximize their profits. Even a dyed-in-the-wool socialist like yourself should understand that. Though you'd probably say it was evil, and I'd say it was logical.
The problem is the subsidies the government sets up have little basis in reality. Both in the aforementioned airline scandal, and in Medicare.
>>Southwest also doesn't fly many of the places I need to travel, especially longer routes and smaller airports. They've cherry picked their routes (and I don't blame them for it) but they often aren't an option. They only fly to 69 destinations in just 35 states.
Yep. They were blocked coming to Fresno because the legacy carriers wanted to keep their 300% inflated ticket prices. It's not all their fault.
>>You might like the lack of assigned seating but I hate it.
It's not a bad practice, though the cattle lanes are a bit annoying. I tend to not worry about it though; I pull out a book and read while everyone at SJC stands on their feet in a queue for an hour. Given the flight to San Diego takes about the same amount of time, it's a good trade and a lot less stressful. For longer flights, yeah, it's annoying.
Also since Southwest allows people to check bags without fee, there's a lot less competition for overhead bin space.
>>Southwest's ability to make a profit has at times had more to do with their fuel hedging program than with their operational prowess. This bit them in 2008 when they lost money due oil prices moving the wrong way on them.
It's partly due to fuel hedging, but they also have a very efficient operation as well. The fuel hedging issue came to the forefront with the oil price shock, but they're profitable even when prices are stable, which is telling.
>>In 2008 and 2009 it came to light that SWA was not performing required inspections on their planes well beyond required deadlines. I have a problem with any airline that risks safety in pursuit of cash and I don't care what the excuse is.
All airlines get caught doing this occasionally. I don't recall the SWA issue being especially serious, even, compared with, say, the nationwide grounding of the Supers AA had to go through a year or two back.
>>SWA only operates the Boeing 737. A fine aircraft but without question not my favorite to fly in.
Look at the other aircraft you'd take from SJC->SAN and say that again with a straight face. =)
There's nothing really wrong with a 737, and it has been modernized with the times. I'm a tall guy (6'6") so the seat pitch bothers me, but otherwise it's fine. I tend to fly United Economy Plus (free upgrade due to status) for longer flights solely for this reason. I think Southwest is a better company than United.
>>SWA in my experience doesn't handle the check in process any better than any other airline.
I agree that there's a lot of local variability, but Southwest does seem faster than the others.
>>Unfortunately, you are in a quite slim minority of people who are actually willing to pay a revenue premium for decent service.
I won't pay a "premium", but I, and a lot of other people I know, will avoid flying US Airways unless it is absolutely the only option for a certain route.
I fly several times a month for my company, and absolutely detest USAir. I recall sitting at McCarran for a transfer and watching the plane next to mine catch on fire. On my flight out of there, part of the overhead rack detached on takeoff and cracked a woman over the head, causing bleeding. The stewardess ran over and pushed the thing back up. Five minutes later? It detached a second time and cracked the woman over the head again.
They also have a tendency to give away seats even if you're not late (and not issue vouchers if this causes you an unexpected stopover) and have generally terrible customer service. I'd rather have teeth pulled than fly US Air.
While my clients usually pay for my airfare, I usually try to find the cheapest flights anyway. The exception to this is USAir.
>>There do exist those of us who would rather not fly Redneck Air.
When USAir, United, or AA approach the level of customer service on Southwest, let me know.
The only real downside to Southwest is their cattle-lane method method of boarding (which never bothered me because I always checked my bags anyway and didn't need to fight for overhead bin space). They've taken steps to solving that as well.
>>Commercial airlines do often use their excess capacity to carry US Postal Service loads, in fact that was how airline regulation in the US got started, as a means to provide guaranteed business to the airlines in exchange for faster mail (and development of a nascent industry).
And immediately turned into a boondoggle as soon as the cost for air flight came down enough that the subsidies for air freight paid more than 100% of the cost.
The airlines would load up their planes with nothing but junk mail and fly back and forth repeatedly, passengers optional, so as to maximize their subsidy money.
There is a lesson here for people who don't understand why Medicare is the most wasteful thing the American government has ever done.
>>So, reality supports my (implicit) claim that airline industry is "free, competitive marketplace". What reality do you live in?
Southwest Airlines looking into coming to our local airport. The other airlines blocked their entry so that they could continue to charge three times the price for an equivalent ticket.
As long as gate space is a concession regulated by local governments, the legacy carries will do everything they can to make the marketplace as non-free and non-competitive as they can.
It's basic price discrimination. By charging each passenger what s/he is willing to pay- no more, no less- for specific services, more people are willing to consume the product and the company can make more money. Strictly speaking, it's actually MORE economically efficient than the previous fare system. It's good for everybody. Higher levels of consumption mean happier consumers, so you're actually wrong.
No, no, a hundred times no.
Charging people ridiculously high fees for checking baggage means that people do the logical thing and carry on their bags. This clogs up the security checkpoints and means that you can no longer find any overhead space in the bins, meaning that after 10 minutes of fruitlessly shoving their suitcase into a space too small from it, the stewardess has to come by, take it off the plane, and gate check it, delaying the flight and possibly costing people a connecting flight (has happened to me more than once on a tight connection).
>>Uhh.. so given the defense budget of hundreds of billions they need charity help??
The military spends quite a bit on entertainment for troops and their families back home.
But I have a feeling that if they bought troops video games, they'd be shelling out $1k per copy of Starcraft 2, or something ridiculous like that.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
>>So unless your tv is 120, 240, 480, or 600 hz, you cannot display non-interlaced 24p.
Mine does a native 24p mode (well, 48Hz mode) called TruCinema 24, which can display 24p without stutter.
It is also possible to display progressive scan DVDs on progressive scan televisions WITHOUT interlacing. They reduplicate entire frames, instead of splitting it into fields, ala 2:3 pulldown. (If the DVD holds interlaced video, of course, this is not possible.)
>>Additionally, the picture - in ALL cases, has artifacts.
Yes, but interlacing artifacts are especially pernicious. They are the ones that create the horrible zig-zag patterns. MPEG artifacts tend to create the blocky/pixellated patterns, and are usually unnoticeable in broadcast or DVD television unless they take a hit in transit somewhere.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
>>Your TV doesn't show movies at 24 frames
Your TV might not. Mine has a native 24fps mode. Likewise, all 120Hz and 240Hz TVs can display 24Hz signals without conversion.
>>. 3:2 pulldown IS interlacing, and if you're watching a bluray at 1080 (even 1080p), it's been interlaced.
Progressive-scan DVDs and Blurays on a progressive-scan monitor or TV should never go through the interlacing process, which avoids the artifacts introduced through interlacing.
>>While I agree that the game shouldn't be splintered, isn't Mass Effect 2 extremely long and in-depth on its own?
If you call about 20 hours of gameplay for 100% completion on Hard difficulty long, then yes. Replayed it a little bit in the hardest difficulty until I got bored with, well, replaying the exact same game again.
The problem with the DLC for the game is that it doesn't really do anything for me. Why would I want a shiny new weapon or new character or whatever when I've already beaten the game?
So if TFA is right, you either get a game that you literally can't beat (which will make the consumer want to kill you), or release content for a game the consumer has already beaten, and therefore won't buy it.
>>The only common feature of the problem seems to be that people whom crashed their Toyota during certain months were very likely to blame the car. Basically just a witch hunt. I feel confident driving my wife's Toyota.
I had a sudden acceleration incident with my '84 Caprice Classic back in the day, and it was certainly due to the car's fault. I had both feet pressed on the brake as hard as I could, and the thing still accelerated out of control along the UCSD campus loop. Ran a stop, nearly hit some pedestrians, but I eventually turned the car off and came to a stop without major incident.
It wasn't a bandwagon effect, as I only went on the internet to research this (this was circa 1999) to find it was called the Flying Dutchman Syndrome by other Caprice Classic owners. I don't know why the Toyotas made headlines but the Caprice's didn't, but there you go.
>>The ironic aspect of your post is your attitude towards regulation appears to follow the "linear, no threshold' model...
Two different things entirely, and not really true. Ultimately you can't do better than argue for common sense when talking about regulations.
Everyone might agree that building codes are nice things to have, but people will disagree vehemently over individual parts of the code that may make more or less sense. For example, a buddy of mine ran a pharmacy manufacturing business in Southern California, making rare cancer meds that nobody else will touch due to the small market for them. They did well enough that they needed expand and move locations. Even though the new location had the same or better sterile processes than the old place, the state regulator wouldn't certify the new place. In this two+ years of regulatory hell, some of his regulations explicitly conflicted with the FDA's, so, long story short, they put his company (mostly) out of business because the old place had been shut down and they couldn't make any more meds.
So to the GP saying that he prefered "overprotective" regulatory agencies, tell that to the cancer patients that can't get their meds now.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
>>Only if you have other sources of intermittent lighting, such as fluorescent lights, or other monitors, that give a "beat frequency".
Nope, not true.
>>The eye doesn't work that way. Ask a biologist to explain.
I've studied the neuroscience of vision. Have you? You're probably thinking of persistence of vision, saccadic masking, attention blink, or other related phenomena as being why you persist in believing the urban legend that "the human eye cannot see faster than 24Hz or so". Look up the wikipedia articles on the above, or read http://www.pisavisionlab.org/downloads/BBRReview96.pdf for a good overview on the subject of saccadic masking.
>>And movies are shot at 24fps. so your argument fails, unless you think that they can "magically" restore the missing frames - they use interlacing
Wrong again. Movies are certainly not interlaced. They use frame rate doubling in theatres (showing the same frame twice) because pretty much everyone is capable of seeing flicker at 24Hz. And there's a lot of people that can see flicker at much higher speeds. Even the peudo-48fps used in movie theatres bugs me.
>>At 24fps it's also interlaced to show at 60hz or greater using a 3:2 pulldown
If you're talking about movies on Bluray, they are typically recorded at 1080p24, which is progressive scan, not interlaced.
>>So no, I'm not "losing" anything at 1080i.
Deinterlacing and reverse telecline techniques are never perfect, and always hackish. They always result in scenarios where you get tearing or flicker. You don't magically get a 1080p signal from a 1080i broadcast.
In regards to radiation in particular, the linear-lethality notion has been proven wrong (there's no negative side effects to radiation until you exceed a certain threshold - mammals actually have adapted to certain amounts of radiation in the environment), but the government uses it anyway because, as I had it explained to me once, "We have no idea what the actual curve looks like."
Well, great. Except ignoring science results in real economic consequences in real life. While you may be comfortable with how the various regulatory agencies currently operate, it's quite clear to me that the FDA and EPA are quite overprotective in certain areas. You might like the sound of that (it's like having an overprotective parent, right?) but the economic consequences of it are quite negative.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
The human eye can see noticeably faster than 30fps. 30fps will give you the illusion of motion, but as anyone who has used a CRT before can tell you, refresh rates below 120Hz are painfully noticeable. I clocked my eyes refreshing somewhere between 500 and 1000Hz by taking a known 60Hz LED source, moving my eye a certain arc length in a certain amount of time, and counting the number of discrete afterimage dots on my retina.
I get distracted by the flickering of those damn LED lights they put everywhere these days, from Christmas tree lights to displays on my fridge, but the worst is on car tail-lights. A lot of people can't see it (see http://www.electronicspoint.com/car-led-tail-lights-strobe-rate-too-slow-t37678.html for a discussion between people bothered by the strobing of LEDs and people who can't see it), but for me it's like flicking a light on and off repeatedly in my face. Caddies are the worst, IMO.
That's neither here nor there, though. The reason 1080i sucks is due to deinterlacing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing), which was and is and always will be a hack.
1080i doesn't magically give you a 1080p signal.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
If it actually did get perceived at 1920x1080, 1080i wouldn't be as horrible a standard as it actually is.
Interleaved video should have been hauled out behind the barn and shot 40 years ago.
If your eyes perceive 24fps as continuous motion, either your eyes are bad or my eyes are especially sensitive to flicker.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
Half the information, buddy, is half the information.
You're getting two frames of 1920x540 data, with a bonus of having the image break up if it moves too fast.
>>I somehow doubt that the test was the first time a 9 year old had seen underlining.
Possibly. But you'd be surprised how long kids can go with incorrect notions.
When I was 3, I was given an envelope to mail. I saw a vent on my car, and decided it was a mailbox, since it had the same shape and size as a mail slot.
The letter was delivered.
I was under the impression you could use those things as mailboxes until I was 8 or 9, probably, though I never tried it again after I got tall enough to put letters in the mail slot.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
>>Unfortunately for you, a vote against a bill that restricts abortion does not equate to supporting infanticide, no matter how many contortions you stretch yourself into.
If it involves killing live births it is, moron.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
>>Free TV is not dead. Get a $20 antenna, and you can get nice 1920x1080 HD TV off the air for *gasp* free.
There's no 1080p broadcast signals (yet). 1080i is the best you can get in the states right now.
Slashdot Mirror
>>Although I admit that the ban on Burqas (face-covering thing for women) seems a ban on religion, the facial expression is a vital part in conversation
That's hilarious.
I love anyone that makes statements of the form, "Well, yes, it's a restriction on a fundamental right, but by golly, I don't like how those stupid people believe those stupid things, and I want to FIX it for them!"
France also banned students from wearing crucifixes in schools. Will you defend that as well? Does a thin chain around the neck prevent you from conversing with them, too?
Honestly, Europe is reacting (quite rightly in some cases) to the unintended consequences of immigration. However, instead of changing their immigration policies, they make stupid, anti-human rights, gestures like these.
>>We'll never have a fully independent and reliable press in the US until they are subsidized by the government. Yes, you read that correctly. SUBSIDIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT
Yes, let's move to a socialist press! That will make things so much better.
I sincerely look forward to the days my fellow Americans and I can all eat cheese and surrender at the drop of a hat.
>>While I am sure there are some positions that are overpaid and won government contracts for more money than the minimal BS they're doing, the bigger issue should be : why do we need this many programs top secret?
Because the Bell model for classifying secrets is a really, really coarse model that doesn't work well in the real world. The WaPo article mentions janitors having Top Secret access. Why? So that they can gain physical access to the labs they clean. Should they be looking at Top Secret data? Of course not. ACL-based systems work a lot better in practice.
"Top Secret" sounds scary and cool, but it doesn't really mean very much these days. Graduate from college, get a job working IT for the military or a contractor and POOF, you have Top Secret access. (POOF = A fairly detailed background check, but still.)
The WaPo article breezes over this, making it sound like there's this shadow conspiracy of people with the spooky-cool "Top Secret" classification, when really it's about as special as getting an A+ certification these days. Maybe it used to mean something, but it doesn't much any more.
>>Please, now, apply that to your beloved corporations.
>>Who again, is "wasting" all this money???
Corporations will always work to maximize their profits. Even a dyed-in-the-wool socialist like yourself should understand that. Though you'd probably say it was evil, and I'd say it was logical.
The problem is the subsidies the government sets up have little basis in reality. Both in the aforementioned airline scandal, and in Medicare.
>>Southwest also doesn't fly many of the places I need to travel, especially longer routes and smaller airports. They've cherry picked their routes (and I don't blame them for it) but they often aren't an option. They only fly to 69 destinations in just 35 states.
Yep. They were blocked coming to Fresno because the legacy carriers wanted to keep their 300% inflated ticket prices. It's not all their fault.
>>You might like the lack of assigned seating but I hate it.
It's not a bad practice, though the cattle lanes are a bit annoying. I tend to not worry about it though; I pull out a book and read while everyone at SJC stands on their feet in a queue for an hour. Given the flight to San Diego takes about the same amount of time, it's a good trade and a lot less stressful. For longer flights, yeah, it's annoying.
Also since Southwest allows people to check bags without fee, there's a lot less competition for overhead bin space.
>>Southwest's ability to make a profit has at times had more to do with their fuel hedging program than with their operational prowess. This bit them in 2008 when they lost money due oil prices moving the wrong way on them.
It's partly due to fuel hedging, but they also have a very efficient operation as well. The fuel hedging issue came to the forefront with the oil price shock, but they're profitable even when prices are stable, which is telling.
>>In 2008 and 2009 it came to light that SWA was not performing required inspections on their planes well beyond required deadlines. I have a problem with any airline that risks safety in pursuit of cash and I don't care what the excuse is.
All airlines get caught doing this occasionally. I don't recall the SWA issue being especially serious, even, compared with, say, the nationwide grounding of the Supers AA had to go through a year or two back.
>>SWA only operates the Boeing 737. A fine aircraft but without question not my favorite to fly in.
Look at the other aircraft you'd take from SJC->SAN and say that again with a straight face. =)
There's nothing really wrong with a 737, and it has been modernized with the times. I'm a tall guy (6'6") so the seat pitch bothers me, but otherwise it's fine. I tend to fly United Economy Plus (free upgrade due to status) for longer flights solely for this reason. I think Southwest is a better company than United.
>>SWA in my experience doesn't handle the check in process any better than any other airline.
I agree that there's a lot of local variability, but Southwest does seem faster than the others.
>>Unfortunately, you are in a quite slim minority of people who are actually willing to pay a revenue premium for decent service.
I won't pay a "premium", but I, and a lot of other people I know, will avoid flying US Airways unless it is absolutely the only option for a certain route.
I fly several times a month for my company, and absolutely detest USAir. I recall sitting at McCarran for a transfer and watching the plane next to mine catch on fire. On my flight out of there, part of the overhead rack detached on takeoff and cracked a woman over the head, causing bleeding. The stewardess ran over and pushed the thing back up. Five minutes later? It detached a second time and cracked the woman over the head again.
They also have a tendency to give away seats even if you're not late (and not issue vouchers if this causes you an unexpected stopover) and have generally terrible customer service. I'd rather have teeth pulled than fly US Air.
While my clients usually pay for my airfare, I usually try to find the cheapest flights anyway. The exception to this is USAir.
>>There do exist those of us who would rather not fly Redneck Air.
When USAir, United, or AA approach the level of customer service on Southwest, let me know.
The only real downside to Southwest is their cattle-lane method method of boarding (which never bothered me because I always checked my bags anyway and didn't need to fight for overhead bin space). They've taken steps to solving that as well.
>>Commercial airlines do often use their excess capacity to carry US Postal Service loads, in fact that was how airline regulation in the US got started, as a means to provide guaranteed business to the airlines in exchange for faster mail (and development of a nascent industry).
And immediately turned into a boondoggle as soon as the cost for air flight came down enough that the subsidies for air freight paid more than 100% of the cost.
The airlines would load up their planes with nothing but junk mail and fly back and forth repeatedly, passengers optional, so as to maximize their subsidy money.
There is a lesson here for people who don't understand why Medicare is the most wasteful thing the American government has ever done.
>>So, reality supports my (implicit) claim that airline industry is "free, competitive marketplace". What reality do you live in?
Southwest Airlines looking into coming to our local airport. The other airlines blocked their entry so that they could continue to charge three times the price for an equivalent ticket.
As long as gate space is a concession regulated by local governments, the legacy carries will do everything they can to make the marketplace as non-free and non-competitive as they can.
No, no, a hundred times no.
Charging people ridiculously high fees for checking baggage means that people do the logical thing and carry on their bags. This clogs up the security checkpoints and means that you can no longer find any overhead space in the bins, meaning that after 10 minutes of fruitlessly shoving their suitcase into a space too small from it, the stewardess has to come by, take it off the plane, and gate check it, delaying the flight and possibly costing people a connecting flight (has happened to me more than once on a tight connection).
Charging for checked luggage hurts everyone.
>>Uhh.. so given the defense budget of hundreds of billions they need charity help??
The military spends quite a bit on entertainment for troops and their families back home.
But I have a feeling that if they bought troops video games, they'd be shelling out $1k per copy of Starcraft 2, or something ridiculous like that.
>>So unless your tv is 120, 240, 480, or 600 hz, you cannot display non-interlaced 24p.
Mine does a native 24p mode (well, 48Hz mode) called TruCinema 24, which can display 24p without stutter.
It is also possible to display progressive scan DVDs on progressive scan televisions WITHOUT interlacing. They reduplicate entire frames, instead of splitting it into fields, ala 2:3 pulldown. (If the DVD holds interlaced video, of course, this is not possible.)
>>Additionally, the picture - in ALL cases, has artifacts.
Yes, but interlacing artifacts are especially pernicious. They are the ones that create the horrible zig-zag patterns. MPEG artifacts tend to create the blocky/pixellated patterns, and are usually unnoticeable in broadcast or DVD television unless they take a hit in transit somewhere.
>>Your TV doesn't show movies at 24 frames
Your TV might not. Mine has a native 24fps mode. Likewise, all 120Hz and 240Hz TVs can display 24Hz signals without conversion.
>>. 3:2 pulldown IS interlacing, and if you're watching a bluray at 1080 (even 1080p), it's been interlaced.
Progressive-scan DVDs and Blurays on a progressive-scan monitor or TV should never go through the interlacing process, which avoids the artifacts introduced through interlacing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24p#24p_vs._NTSC_video
>>While I agree that the game shouldn't be splintered, isn't Mass Effect 2 extremely long and in-depth on its own?
If you call about 20 hours of gameplay for 100% completion on Hard difficulty long, then yes. Replayed it a little bit in the hardest difficulty until I got bored with, well, replaying the exact same game again.
The problem with the DLC for the game is that it doesn't really do anything for me. Why would I want a shiny new weapon or new character or whatever when I've already beaten the game?
So if TFA is right, you either get a game that you literally can't beat (which will make the consumer want to kill you), or release content for a game the consumer has already beaten, and therefore won't buy it.
>>The only common feature of the problem seems to be that people whom crashed their Toyota during certain months were very likely to blame the car. Basically just a witch hunt. I feel confident driving my wife's Toyota.
I had a sudden acceleration incident with my '84 Caprice Classic back in the day, and it was certainly due to the car's fault. I had both feet pressed on the brake as hard as I could, and the thing still accelerated out of control along the UCSD campus loop. Ran a stop, nearly hit some pedestrians, but I eventually turned the car off and came to a stop without major incident.
It wasn't a bandwagon effect, as I only went on the internet to research this (this was circa 1999) to find it was called the Flying Dutchman Syndrome by other Caprice Classic owners. I don't know why the Toyotas made headlines but the Caprice's didn't, but there you go.
>>The ironic aspect of your post is your attitude towards regulation appears to follow the "linear, no threshold' model...
Two different things entirely, and not really true. Ultimately you can't do better than argue for common sense when talking about regulations.
Everyone might agree that building codes are nice things to have, but people will disagree vehemently over individual parts of the code that may make more or less sense. For example, a buddy of mine ran a pharmacy manufacturing business in Southern California, making rare cancer meds that nobody else will touch due to the small market for them. They did well enough that they needed expand and move locations. Even though the new location had the same or better sterile processes than the old place, the state regulator wouldn't certify the new place. In this two+ years of regulatory hell, some of his regulations explicitly conflicted with the FDA's, so, long story short, they put his company (mostly) out of business because the old place had been shut down and they couldn't make any more meds.
So to the GP saying that he prefered "overprotective" regulatory agencies, tell that to the cancer patients that can't get their meds now.
>>Only if you have other sources of intermittent lighting, such as fluorescent lights, or other monitors, that give a "beat frequency".
Nope, not true.
>>The eye doesn't work that way. Ask a biologist to explain.
I've studied the neuroscience of vision. Have you? You're probably thinking of persistence of vision, saccadic masking, attention blink, or other related phenomena as being why you persist in believing the urban legend that "the human eye cannot see faster than 24Hz or so". Look up the wikipedia articles on the above, or read http://www.pisavisionlab.org/downloads/BBRReview96.pdf for a good overview on the subject of saccadic masking.
>>And movies are shot at 24fps. so your argument fails, unless you think that they can "magically" restore the missing frames - they use interlacing
Wrong again. Movies are certainly not interlaced. They use frame rate doubling in theatres (showing the same frame twice) because pretty much everyone is capable of seeing flicker at 24Hz. And there's a lot of people that can see flicker at much higher speeds. Even the peudo-48fps used in movie theatres bugs me.
>>At 24fps it's also interlaced to show at 60hz or greater using a 3:2 pulldown
If you're talking about movies on Bluray, they are typically recorded at 1080p24, which is progressive scan, not interlaced.
>>So no, I'm not "losing" anything at 1080i.
Deinterlacing and reverse telecline techniques are never perfect, and always hackish. They always result in scenarios where you get tearing or flicker. You don't magically get a 1080p signal from a 1080i broadcast.
In regards to radiation in particular, the linear-lethality notion has been proven wrong (there's no negative side effects to radiation until you exceed a certain threshold - mammals actually have adapted to certain amounts of radiation in the environment), but the government uses it anyway because, as I had it explained to me once, "We have no idea what the actual curve looks like."
Well, great. Except ignoring science results in real economic consequences in real life. While you may be comfortable with how the various regulatory agencies currently operate, it's quite clear to me that the FDA and EPA are quite overprotective in certain areas. You might like the sound of that (it's like having an overprotective parent, right?) but the economic consequences of it are quite negative.
The human eye can see noticeably faster than 30fps. 30fps will give you the illusion of motion, but as anyone who has used a CRT before can tell you, refresh rates below 120Hz are painfully noticeable. I clocked my eyes refreshing somewhere between 500 and 1000Hz by taking a known 60Hz LED source, moving my eye a certain arc length in a certain amount of time, and counting the number of discrete afterimage dots on my retina.
I get distracted by the flickering of those damn LED lights they put everywhere these days, from Christmas tree lights to displays on my fridge, but the worst is on car tail-lights. A lot of people can't see it (see http://www.electronicspoint.com/car-led-tail-lights-strobe-rate-too-slow-t37678.html for a discussion between people bothered by the strobing of LEDs and people who can't see it), but for me it's like flicking a light on and off repeatedly in my face. Caddies are the worst, IMO.
That's neither here nor there, though. The reason 1080i sucks is due to deinterlacing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing), which was and is and always will be a hack.
1080i doesn't magically give you a 1080p signal.
If it actually did get perceived at 1920x1080, 1080i wouldn't be as horrible a standard as it actually is.
Interleaved video should have been hauled out behind the barn and shot 40 years ago.
If your eyes perceive 24fps as continuous motion, either your eyes are bad or my eyes are especially sensitive to flicker.
Half the information, buddy, is half the information.
You're getting two frames of 1920x540 data, with a bonus of having the image break up if it moves too fast.
>>I somehow doubt that the test was the first time a 9 year old had seen underlining.
Possibly. But you'd be surprised how long kids can go with incorrect notions.
When I was 3, I was given an envelope to mail. I saw a vent on my car, and decided it was a mailbox, since it had the same shape and size as a mail slot.
The letter was delivered.
I was under the impression you could use those things as mailboxes until I was 8 or 9, probably, though I never tried it again after I got tall enough to put letters in the mail slot.
1080i is 1920x1080/2 = 1920x540 resolution.
>>Unfortunately for you, a vote against a bill that restricts abortion does not equate to supporting infanticide, no matter how many contortions you stretch yourself into.
If it involves killing live births it is, moron.
>>Free TV is not dead. Get a $20 antenna, and you can get nice 1920x1080 HD TV off the air for *gasp* free.
There's no 1080p broadcast signals (yet). 1080i is the best you can get in the states right now.