1) I made stereo pix of the Mars images over a day ago. Posted a link here on Slashdot, and it was rejected. WTF? Did somebody let Timothy out of his playpen or something?
True. But you have to agree there was some degree of professional neglect on their part. While it's true the GPL doesn't necessarrily require an inheritant to go out of their way to contact the benefactor, as is the case with KISS, its good practice to do so, at least from a professional standpoint.
AFAIK, nothing in the GPL obligates me KISS to have any substantial dialogue with the mplayer guys. Much the same as nothing obligates me to say "thank you" when someone keeps an elevator door open for me. It's just common courtesy. KISS should have acknoqledged their concerns. GPL or not, it's undeniably rude to take someone's code and run off making major commercial plans with it. Call it personal consideration, professional ethics, or whatever.. I don't think it's beyond the ability of any company, no matter how large, to be considerate to people.
(For the record, I couldn't manage to send a fax to them. And it was worded much like above, not a flaming zealous nasty-gram. )
In accordance with the GPL, the source for KISS DP-508 is available upon request, for a nominal fee to cover media and shipping costs.*
.
.
.
* = The source code will be provided to you as a series of large, neon-lit marquee letters shipped individually in wooden packing crates. Currently, the world's supply of neon gas limits our ability to ship large quantities of source code. The current expected wait time is 32 years, plus or minus 6 months, depending upon the condition of labor relations in countries with substantial noble gas exports.
For more information, please inject crystal meth directly into your eyeballs, and light yourself on fire while listening to the following song:
I do tons of this stuff for a hobby. Even TV programs...When the camera is mounted on a dolly, you can reconstruct the shot in 3D and see if the set is fake or real.:)
The fact that the comet was photographed from two slightly different angles makes it possible to create a stereoscopic view of the object. I enhanced the left-hand image a little bit to help bring out the depth of the object. The original image is way too washed out to make it a good fit.
In order to view it, sit squarely infront of your monitor at a distance of a few feet, cross your eyes gently, and try to merge both sides of the images into a "single image" in the center. If you're having trouble, try using the two red birds as a visual guide. Once the birds overlap, the rest of the picture will as well.
Has it occured to anyone that our Government (and any other industrialized nation) has "plans" on the books for just about every imaginable scenario? And should?
It's called "preparedness", kids. Thats what you pay tax dollars for. You pay tax dollars so that your country won't be caught with it's pants down when the shit hits the fan. Any government worth it's shit draws up plans in advance, anticipating what may happen. Thousands of them. Some of these plans are too scary for normal citizens to know about. But they have to be made.
The Arab oil embargo could have seriously crippled the American economy. That alone is reason enough to go to war. There would be rioting in the streets if the gas pumps stopped flowing, the machines stopped working, and industry ground to a halt. Think about that for a moment before running off thinking an invasion of Saudi Arabia & Kuwait is the byproduct of some oooh-so-evil secret Military comittee tucked away inside a super-secret mountain fortress, controlled by the psychic vampire Illuminati Freemasons.
Put your little conspiracy thoery hat back under your chair and get a grip. The Government is made up of people like you and me. If you had access to the same information they did, you would have made exactly the same arrangements, and outlined exactly the same contingencies.
Hey, just sharing what I know..Jesus. Go and throw a hissy fit why don't you.
I spent alot of time with the Xouvert crew. From what I understand, Xouvert was formed largely out of this same frustration -- Neither developers nor companies could even get a word in edgewise with them, with means the whole project sits and stagnates... Well, until things like today's event, that is.:)
The core team dissolving is a good thing, as I see it. It clears the way for XFree to be less Cathedral and more Bazaar.
From what little i've heard over the past few months, the XFree core team had become something of an elitist boys-club, completely and totally closed to the idea of accepting any outside code/ideas. Fuck that shit.. There were people who wanted write access to CVS, and HAD perfectly working code, and who were refused outright by that sad sack of pricks.
Judging from your posting history, you seem to have an abnormal fascination with me. Infact, judging from that link, it seems you make it a point to follow me practically on a daily basis.
Here's a hint, troll. If you're going to ride someones coattails, wipe your feet first. Otherwise...step off.
1) Weight Horsepower.. Most of the stuff being tossed at Mars as of late is comparably underpowered and flimsy compared to what we were sending back in the 70's. None of this "air bag" crap. Burning retros on the way down is the way to go.
2) Roll-cage. And besides, even if you lose some instrumentation in the "bounce", thats a helluvalot better than losing EVERYTHING, sitting, wedged up against a rock you wont ever be able to get away from.
Well, sure, by no means is it an exact science. But part of the mistake the Beagle 2 team made was in designing the lander to match what they expected to find. While sure, it's great if everything goes as planned....but if it doesn't, you're stuck with the equivalent of a one-legged man in the asskicking contest. Good luck.
A simple example--Suppose the rover had to disembark from the lander on its own, without human guidance. The lander is wedged up against a rock that wont allow the petals to fully open. Guess what. With the current design, that would have been impossible. At the end of the day, you'll have exactly the same thing you had at the start--a multi-million dollar hunk of metal wedged up against a rock with no hope of escape.
Solution: A retractable rod that can be positioned by the lander, and used as a cane to "shove" itself off of nearby objects it gets hung up on. How about stronger motors in the petals? Or better yet, software to control the petals in such a way as to allow the lander itself to "crawl around" before deploying the rover? Hell, wind up a bigass coiled steel spring and mount it underneath the lander prior to launch. Tell the lander, "If you end up in a crater and don't hear anything from Earth, trigger the spring." Boing. No matter where it ends up coming to rest, at least you've got another chance at contacting it, versus no chance in hell.
I could build the equivalent of those with $50 worth of parts from Ace Hardware. Why couldn't they?
My main accomplishment in life is not "making swirly patterns in gimp". However, it should be noted that none of my "swirly patterns" ever went tits-up due to bad engineering. Infact, they worked so well that trolls like you remember them, and apparently still use them.
I just find it awful that rather than be true scientists, these schmucks are trying to spin the living hell out of this situation to save face. The right thing to say would be that the Beagle 2 died from bad engineering, not bad luck. It's engineering shortcomings have been known and debated publically for months.
What you need to understand is that Newtonian physics will get ANY probe 99.999% of the way there. Thats leaves 0.001% of the work up to engineering. If they can't get the remaining 0.001% down, they should go back to designing things like shoes and lollipops. 1950's technology put us on the Moon. 1960's technology put us on Venus and Mars. These people want you to believe that 90's technology put us in a crater.
1) Fell into a crater?! Come on! The landing area was intentionally selected to be free of any obstructions.. It's a goddamn flood plane. An area near the equator specifically selected to be as flat, and as crater-free as possible! The lander is about as likely to be sitting in the bottom of a crater as Michael Jackson's shoulder is likely to be dislocated. Zero.
2) You get what you pay for. British engineering jokes aside (*cough*)fighterplanesmadeoutofwood(*cough), the airbags they were originally going to use on the lander failed. Their last-minute replacement wasn't even tested.
Almost 5 years ago to the day, I started a little project called PROPAGANDA. In a nutshell, I wanted to do something to help bring people to the platform, and flip Mickeysoft the bird at the same time. I mulled over the idea for months, and then the Halloween memos were leaked. Like most of us, I got pretty pissed off at that.:) Putting the time and effort into PROPAGANDA was the best form of payback I could think of.:) In retrospect, it worked rather well.
I can remember very clearly at the time, circa '98 or so, hoping that a little exposure for the platform would mean articles like this one would exist in the mainstream press 5 years later, out in the open. It's kinda nice to see, in a way.. The rest of the industry is starting to catch on.
Makes me wonder what the press will say 5 years from now.. If anything needs to be said at all.;)
Back in '98 or so, my best friend Brian politely informed me that his employer at the time was footing the bill for him to fly out to LinuxWorld Expo for 3 days. Not a bad gig. This made me a bit jealous, of course, so I made a bet with him. I bet him $50 that he could not come away from the conference with a photo of him and Linus having a beer. See, Bri is painfully shy. The odds of him running into (let alone introducing himself to!) Linus were pretty damn low, I figured. Hahaaa, an easy $50, I figured. Sucker!
So Bri gets on the plane and leaves....Days went by, and I heard nothing. Of course, this meant I could (in my infinite wisdom) run out and immediately spend $50, because he was obviously going to return from the conference empty-handed. Ch-ching, -$50.00...(I think it was on something totally meaningful, like a spool of CD-Rs.)
A couple days later, I get a call from Brian. Snickering like a friggin hyena.
The consumate programmer that he is, Brian figures out a way to do it. That son of a bitch intentionally got drunk, and drunk enough to work up the courage to pull it off...He spots Linus, and immediately buys two big frothy glasses of beer. He walks over to him, and asks Linus if he can have his picture taken with him. Linus kindly obliges. "Here, hold this", Bri says, and hands one of the beers to Linus. Bri hands his camera off to a passer-by who snaps the photo. Picture perfect. There's Bri, theres Linus, and they're both holding a tall 'n frosty one. And it's a good picture. Son of a bitch!:)
1) I dont own a cell phone, because I dont like them. I find them irritating ball-and-chain solutions meant to trade convenience for meaningful contact. The only people who call me are the ones I want to be able to call me. The rest can email me, or visit me. And no, I don't care if you think differently. You have to understand, i'm talking to someone who's paying $50/mo to be aggrevated, and knows it.
2) If I have email going to my voicemail, and voicemail going to my email, that means I have twice the maintenance hassle, and twice the confusion. How is convoluting a situation going to make it better?
Slashdot Mirror
1) I made stereo pix of the Mars images over a day ago. Posted a link here on Slashdot, and it was rejected. WTF? Did somebody let Timothy out of his playpen or something?
2) Have a look, no 3D glasses required.
Enjoy.
I tried submitting this as a story, but it was rejected.
Hooray.
Hi Alan,
True. But you have to agree there was some degree of professional neglect on their part. While it's true the GPL doesn't necessarrily require an inheritant to go out of their way to contact the benefactor, as is the case with KISS, its good practice to do so, at least from a professional standpoint.
AFAIK, nothing in the GPL obligates me KISS to have any substantial dialogue with the mplayer guys. Much the same as nothing obligates me to say "thank you" when someone keeps an elevator door open for me. It's just common courtesy. KISS should have acknoqledged their concerns. GPL or not, it's undeniably rude to take someone's code and run off making major commercial plans with it. Call it personal consideration, professional ethics, or whatever.. I don't think it's beyond the ability of any company, no matter how large, to be considerate to people.
(For the record, I couldn't manage to send a fax to them. And it was worded much like above, not a flaming zealous nasty-gram. )
Cheers,
Nah. Left on my own accord a few months ago.
Hi.
I'd ask you to remove the stick from your ass, but there are logging restrictions on Redwoods.
In accordance with the GPL, the source for KISS DP-508 is available upon
request, for a nominal fee to cover media and shipping costs.*
.
.
.
* = The source code will be provided to you as a series of large, neon-lit
marquee letters shipped individually in wooden packing crates. Currently,
the world's supply of neon gas limits our ability to ship large quantities
of source code. The current expected wait time is 32 years, plus or minus
6 months, depending upon the condition of labor relations in countries with
substantial noble gas exports.
For more information, please inject crystal meth directly into your eyeballs,
and light yourself on fire while listening to the following song:
http://www.ibiblio.org/propaganda/pogo/easteregg.
Thats the version of the GPL I prefer, personally.
Their fax number is busy... Either they took the ringer off, or other people have the same idea.
Believe it or not, it can be done.. And yes, even with goatse.
Stereo 3D wallpaper!/a
"They like to pretend that it hasn't, but it has."
Yeah, just like I pretend that Cringley doesn't matter, but he does.
Check this directory in a few minutes:
:)
http://www.ibiblio.org/propaganda/stereotv
BTW, one of them is of a porno pic. not worksafe. be careful.
I do tons of this stuff for a hobby. Even TV programs...When the camera is mounted on a dolly, you can reconstruct the shot in 3D and see if the set is fake or real. :)
Here's some of my stuff:
My Stereo 3D photos
Here's an easy one for beginners:
The dashboard of my old Mazda 323
Cheers,
It's kewl.
Have a look:
Approximated 3D stereoscopic view of the comet
The fact that the comet was photographed from two slightly different angles makes it possible to create a stereoscopic view of the object. I enhanced the left-hand image a little bit to help bring out the depth of the object. The original image is way too washed out to make it a good fit.
In order to view it, sit squarely infront of your monitor at a distance of a few feet, cross your eyes gently, and try to merge both sides of the images into a "single image" in the center. If you're having trouble, try using the two red birds as a visual guide. Once the birds overlap, the rest of the picture will as well.
Ahhhh, I love stereoscopy.
Has it occured to anyone that our Government (and any other industrialized nation) has "plans" on the books for just about every imaginable scenario? And should?
It's called "preparedness", kids. Thats what you pay tax dollars for. You pay tax dollars so that your country won't be caught with it's pants down when the shit hits the fan. Any government worth it's shit draws up plans in advance, anticipating what may happen. Thousands of them. Some of these plans are too scary for normal citizens to know about. But they have to be made.
The Arab oil embargo could have seriously crippled the American economy. That alone is reason enough to go to war. There would be rioting in the streets if the gas pumps stopped flowing, the machines stopped working, and industry ground to a halt. Think about that for a moment before running off thinking an invasion of Saudi Arabia & Kuwait is the byproduct of some oooh-so-evil secret Military comittee tucked away inside a super-secret mountain fortress, controlled by the psychic vampire Illuminati Freemasons.
Put your little conspiracy thoery hat back under your chair and get a grip. The Government is made up of people like you and me. If you had access to the same information they did, you would have made exactly the same arrangements, and outlined exactly the same contingencies.
Most women should be fined for posting nude photos of themselves.
Hey, just sharing what I know..Jesus. Go and throw a hissy fit why don't you.
I spent alot of time with the Xouvert crew. From what I understand, Xouvert was formed largely out of this same frustration -- Neither developers nor companies could even get a word in edgewise with them, with means the whole project sits and stagnates... Well, until things like today's event, that is.
The core team dissolving is a good thing, as I see it. It clears the way for XFree to be less Cathedral and more Bazaar.
From what little i've heard over the past few months, the XFree core team had become something of an elitist boys-club, completely and totally closed to the idea of accepting any outside code/ideas. Fuck that shit.. There were people who wanted write access to CVS, and HAD perfectly working code, and who were refused outright by that sad sack of pricks.
Judging from your posting history, you seem to have an abnormal fascination with me. Infact, judging from that link, it seems you make it a point to follow me practically on a daily basis.
Here's a hint, troll. If you're going to ride someones coattails, wipe your feet first. Otherwise...step off.
1) Weight Horsepower.. Most of the stuff being tossed at Mars as of late is comparably underpowered and flimsy compared to what we were sending back in the 70's. None of this "air bag" crap. Burning retros on the way down is the way to go.
2) Roll-cage. And besides, even if you lose some instrumentation in the "bounce", thats a helluvalot better than losing EVERYTHING, sitting, wedged up against a rock you wont ever be able to get away from.
Well, sure, by no means is it an exact science. But part of the mistake the Beagle 2 team made was in designing the lander to match what they expected to find. While sure, it's great if everything goes as planned....but if it doesn't, you're stuck with the equivalent of a one-legged man in the asskicking contest. Good luck.
A simple example--Suppose the rover had to disembark from the lander on its own, without human guidance. The lander is wedged up against a rock that wont allow the petals to fully open. Guess what. With the current design, that would have been impossible. At the end of the day, you'll have exactly the same thing you had at the start--a multi-million dollar hunk of metal wedged up against a rock with no hope of escape.
Solution: A retractable rod that can be positioned by the lander, and used as a cane to "shove" itself off of nearby objects it gets hung up on. How about stronger motors in the petals? Or better yet, software to control the petals in such a way as to allow the lander itself to "crawl around" before deploying the rover? Hell, wind up a bigass coiled steel spring and mount it underneath the lander prior to launch. Tell the lander, "If you end up in a crater and don't hear anything from Earth, trigger the spring." Boing. No matter where it ends up coming to rest, at least you've got another chance at contacting it, versus no chance in hell.
I could build the equivalent of those with $50 worth of parts from Ace Hardware. Why couldn't they?
Troll,
My main accomplishment in life is not "making swirly patterns in gimp". However, it should be noted that none of my "swirly patterns" ever went tits-up due to bad engineering. Infact, they worked so well that trolls like you remember them, and apparently still use them.
I just find it awful that rather than be true scientists, these schmucks are trying to spin the living hell out of this situation to save face. The right thing to say would be that the Beagle 2 died from bad engineering, not bad luck. It's engineering shortcomings have been known and debated publically for months.
What you need to understand is that Newtonian physics will get ANY probe 99.999% of the way there. Thats leaves 0.001% of the work up to engineering. If they can't get the remaining 0.001% down, they should go back to designing things like shoes and lollipops. 1950's technology put us on the Moon. 1960's technology put us on Venus and Mars. These people want you to believe that 90's technology put us in a crater.
1) Fell into a crater?! Come on! The landing area was intentionally selected to be free of any obstructions.. It's a goddamn flood plane. An area near the equator specifically selected to be as flat, and as crater-free as possible! The lander is about as likely to be sitting in the bottom of a crater as Michael Jackson's shoulder is likely to be dislocated. Zero.
2) You get what you pay for. British engineering jokes aside (*cough*)fighterplanesmadeoutofwood(*cough), the airbags they were originally going to use on the lander failed. Their last-minute replacement wasn't even tested.
Almost 5 years ago to the day, I started a little project called PROPAGANDA. In a nutshell, I wanted to do something to help bring people to the platform, and flip Mickeysoft the bird at the same time. I mulled over the idea for months, and then the Halloween memos were leaked. Like most of us, I got pretty pissed off at that.
I can remember very clearly at the time, circa '98 or so, hoping that a little exposure for the platform would mean articles like this one would exist in the mainstream press 5 years later, out in the open. It's kinda nice to see, in a way.. The rest of the industry is starting to catch on.
Makes me wonder what the press will say 5 years from now.. If anything needs to be said at all.
Back in '98 or so, my best friend Brian politely informed me that his employer at the time was footing the bill for him to fly out to LinuxWorld Expo for 3 days. Not a bad gig. This made me a bit jealous, of course, so I made a bet with him. I bet him $50 that he could not come away from the conference with a photo of him and Linus having a beer. See, Bri is painfully shy. The odds of him running into (let alone introducing himself to!) Linus were pretty damn low, I figured. Hahaaa, an easy $50, I figured. Sucker!
So Bri gets on the plane and leaves....Days went by, and I heard nothing. Of course, this meant I could (in my infinite wisdom) run out and immediately spend $50, because he was obviously going to return from the conference empty-handed. Ch-ching, -$50.00...(I think it was on something totally meaningful, like a spool of CD-Rs.)
A couple days later, I get a call from Brian. Snickering like a friggin hyena.
(bbRRRrrrring....bbRRRrrrriing..) (*click*)
Me: Hello?
Brian: (...silence...) (*snicker*)
Me: Hellloooo.....?
Brian: (*snicker*)...Hey...(*snicker*)
Me: Oh! Hey man! How was your trip?
Brian: (..silence...)....*snicker*... Y..Y-YOU OWE ME FIFTY BUCKS!! (*snicker*) PAY UP, BITCH!!!!
Me:
Brain: OOOH YEAAH, PAY UP BITCH!!!
The consumate programmer that he is, Brian figures out a way to do it. That son of a bitch intentionally got drunk, and drunk enough to work up the courage to pull it off...He spots Linus, and immediately buys two big frothy glasses of beer. He walks over to him, and asks Linus if he can have his picture taken with him. Linus kindly obliges. "Here, hold this", Bri says, and hands one of the beers to Linus. Bri hands his camera off to a passer-by who snaps the photo. Picture perfect. There's Bri, theres Linus, and they're both holding a tall 'n frosty one. And it's a good picture. Son of a bitch!
Ch-ChinG! another -$50.00...
Maybe they should outsource to America.
BTW, you can actually have a Poag-idiot-detector if you like. It's in code now:
.. Everything you need to build one is in the docs. Here's the development blog: Pogo's Development Blog
Pogo 3.0RC10
Anyway, to offer a rebuttal to your froth:
1) I dont own a cell phone, because I dont like them. I find them irritating ball-and-chain solutions meant to trade convenience for meaningful contact. The only people who call me are the ones I want to be able to call me. The rest can email me, or visit me. And no, I don't care if you think differently. You have to understand, i'm talking to someone who's paying $50/mo to be aggrevated, and knows it.
2) If I have email going to my voicemail, and voicemail going to my email, that means I have twice the maintenance hassle, and twice the confusion. How is convoluting a situation going to make it better?
3) Usenet, moron. USENET. Jesus...