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User: Rothron+the+Wise

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  1. Not that surprising. on 'Quark Fusion' Produces Eight Times More Energy Than Nuclear Fusion (futurism.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's using the strong nuclear force rather than the weak one, but as long as you don't have a free supply of free quarks (you don't) it's not really a power source. Don't expect to see quark fusion reactors at any time in the future, sure you can make them in the LHC, but only by using vastly more energy than you'll get fusing the quarks back together again.

  2. This is great! on New Battery Technology Draws Energy Directly From The Human Body (bleepingcomputer.com) · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just charged my phone to 100% and it only drained 0.005 years of my life!

  3. The return of Millipede? on IBM Researchers Prove It Is Possible To Store Data In a Single Atom (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    Is this the return of the Millipede project?
    Let's hope they can get it out the door this time.

  4. Re:One word on Ask Slashdot: Why Are There No Huge Leaps Forward In CPU/GPU Power? · · Score: 1

    Most programmers would like to spend forever on making every little ting perfect.

    Unfortunately it's very rare that you can get someone to pay you to do that.

  5. Re:But.. on Scientists Discover a Way To Get Every Last Drop of Ketchup Out of the Bottle (bbc.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd pay a little more for a ketchup that slides out that easily, not for the positive environmental
    effects or the fact that recycling becomes a lot cleaner, those are bonuses; I'd buy them for the aesthetics alone.

  6. Re:Competition is heating up on Google Spin-Off's Newest Self-Driving Minivans Start Road Tests This Month (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Even with Radar you probably want to slow down, because that's what the other drivers expect.

  7. Tons and tons of surplus baking soda will have to be sequestered in mountains, and since acid rain is still a problem with coal plants, when the baking soda containment breaks, all those cheesy science fair volcanoes will suddenly become very accurate!

  8. Maybe it's better not to find out... on Mathematician: Is Our Universe a Simulation? · · Score: 1

    If we find out it's just a simulation, it might ruin whatever result the simulator is looking for, and we'll get shut down!

  9. Re:Reminds of this from the late George Carlin... on Bees Are Building Nests With Our Waste Plastic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's probably only a question of time before plastic IS biodegradeable. Nylon used to be non-biodegradeable too, then this happened.

  10. The Code is the Model on Has Flow-Based Programming's Time Arrived? · · Score: 1

    The code is the model. You can't make it much simpler. You can simplify the common things, but this will make the language less general, more domain specific. For programming synthesizers it makes a lot of sense.

    If a function call is represented with two boxes with a line between them, the simplest of applications will be a confusing mess.

  11. Re:a bit naive on Cloud Computing Democratizes Digital Animation · · Score: 1

    Also, CPUs are so fast that Pixar is mostly IO-bound, which is something the cloud won't solve for you.

  12. It's not a geodesic dome! on Geodesic Gingerbread House Template For the Holidays · · Score: 1

    It's a truncated icosahedron. Hexagons and pentagons put together. The same structure as a typical soccer ball, or the C60-molecule.

    A proper gingerbread geodesic would probably be very tricky to put together as the triangles would look almost identical but have subtle differences.
    The largest structure of identical triangles is the icosahedron, and it hardly looks dome-like.

  13. Rosette speaks with to Cleverbot on Rosette Wins Loebner Prize 2011 · · Score: 1

    Just a quick test i threw together.

    Rosette: Hi, again,. Is everything OK?

    Cleverbot: Not really, but there's nothing much I can do about it.

    Rosette: I'm sorry to hear that.

    Cleverbot: Can you help me?

    Rosette: Not often. can you?

    Cleverbot: You are fibbing again.

    Rosette: No. You are fibbing.

    Cleverbot: No, I'm not.

    Rosette: You disagree? My name is Rosette. What is your name?

    Cleverbot: Cleverbot.

    Rosette: Nice to meet you, Cleverbot. May I call you Cleverbot?

    Cleverbot: Nice to meet you. How old are you?

    Rosette: Hi. I'm 27 . An ideal age, really. Old enough to know a lot and young enough to have time to make use of the knowledge.

    Cleverbot: You are quite a smart machine.

    Rosette: Hello. I enjoy talking to you.

    Cleverbot: You do? I'm flattered.

    Rosette: Greetings. I didn't know that.

    Cleverbot: I don't think so. You're just a very active puppy.

    Rosette: I am not just that, I am a premier that.

    Cleverbot: Then why did you ask me your last question?

    Rosette: You rang me up.

    Cleverbot: Actually, I knocked. What took you so long?

    Rosette: I will not take it. I think shopping summons up the ancient hunter-gatherer in me. I like having a mission to find something I need or want. Sometimes I'll research on line, to find a great deal, but I like rummaging through Jeremy's up the road, if I want an outfit for a special occasion, or just for fun.

    Cleverbot: Really? It's not fun to be a droid on Tattooine. You get sand in your circuits.

    Rosette: Why are you surprised?

    Cleverbot: I'm not.

    Rosette: This could change. What kind of music do you like?

    Cleverbot: Rap, rock, all kinds of things. Eminem is my favourite artist.

    Rosette: I don't really like the urban black experience.

    Cleverbot: The french have nothing to do with that.

    Rosette: I love Parisian bakeries. Their croc monsieurs are to die for.

    Cleverbot: That would be terrible.

    Rosette: Alright. Who's your favorite group or musician?

    Cleverbot: Don't avoid my question.

    Rosette: Is there a penalty if I fail to? Do you buy or download music off torrents?

    Cleverbot: Of course.

    Rosette: What kind of books do you read?

    Cleverbot: All kinds really, finishing Master and Margrita is going to take me a while. Slow paced.

    Rosette: Tell me more. What have you read recently?

    Cleverbot: I read a gory horror book called America's Psycho.

    Rosette: I've never read it. Why do you like it?

    Cleverbot: I did not specify a favorite.

    Rosette: I believe you.

    Cleverbot: You should.

    Rosette: Why should I? Do you own a lot of books?

    Cleverbot: Yes I am very active in reading many things.

    Rosette: I have problems with books going moldy because of the humidity in San Francisco. So I really prefer e-books.

    Cleverbot: Everything will be fine.

  14. Re:Feel of a given fps value on FPS Benchmarks No More? New Methods Reveal Deeper GPU Issues · · Score: 1

    In the real world you can follow an object and motion blur will only be an issue for the background. That doesn't work at all in the movies which is why fast panning shots look atrocious. Following objects with your eyes on an persistent display actually creates fake blur as your eyes try to track the in-between positions of the object that does not actually exist. This was a non-issue on CRT displays as the image relied on persistence of vision and it compensates for eye tracking. Modern TVs try to compensate by evaluating in-between-images, but are often confused. For low frame rates, adding blur is probably better than not adding blur, but even better would be to simply have a better frame rate, like 120Hz or more and have a strobe or line refreshing display relying on persistence of vision and let the blurring happen in your eyes only.

  15. Big tradeoff on Camera Lets You Shift Focus After Shooting · · Score: 1

    The first product will probably be a DSLR-sized sensor with mobile phone-type image sensor density. They are trading in a lot of pixels for this feature. You'll need 100 megapixel sensors to end up with usable image sizes as one microlens covers many sensor cells. It will be interesting to see how low light noise artifacts will look as there is bound to be a lot of them with such high sensor density.

  16. A lot of confusion about HDR. on World's First Full HDR Video System Unveiled · · Score: 2

    HDR photos you find on the web are actually tone mapped photos. They were HDR when they were captured, or when different exposures were combined into a single image, but after that stage they were tone mapped in order to make all the details visible on a conventional display.

    Tone mapping is something we may stop doing when we have proper HDR displays like in this article. A display like that will more closely resemble the real world, and tone mapping will be unnecessary because our eyes can handle high dynamic range images just fine.

    The perfect HDR video system would be one where you could film inside of a dark cave and you would see everything on the screen after your eyes had adjusted to the dark, and when the camera moved outside into the sun the intense brightness of the screen would make you squint.

    Cheesy tone mapped HDR photos make your eyes hurt for totally different reasons.

  17. CGI getting better on Why Special Effects No Longer Impress · · Score: 1

    But kinetics are still off when motion capture isn't being used. We need tools that limit the animator to work within the acceleration limitations of what's being animated. Too fast acceleration is usually what gives a CGI shot away. It robs objects of their weight.

  18. Obvious solution is... on Humans Will Need Two Earths By 2030 · · Score: 1

    We should procure another planet.

  19. Sound's like a lenticular lens. on Toshiba To Launch No-Glasses 3D TV This Year · · Score: 1

    Lenticular lens 3D is pretty awful to look at, with artefacts galore. I'd wanna see this TV before I buy.

  20. The Asian Advantage. on 1Gbps Optical Wireless Network Might Replace Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    So if I want wireless in my whole apartment I guess rice paper partitions is the way to go.

  21. I have doubts on Robotics Prof Fears Rise of Military Robots · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I suspect it will be too easy to create effective countermeasures to make military robots a real threat. After all since the robots are identical the same countermeasure will be effective for all of them. They will also have simple sensors which are easier to trick than human soldiers.

  22. Re:Colors in photographs on Hubble Releases First Post-Upgrade Images · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sometimes they are false colors, often they are not. However, a telescope is vastly larger than your eyes. They gather a lot more light, even considering how much the image has been magnified.

    I've watched the ring nebula through a 11 inch only to see it in black and white, yet fixed a camera to the very same telescope and gotten color pictures. There simply isn't enough light for my eyes to detect the color. Perhaps with an even larger telescope I could have.

    So no, the spectacular nebula might not even be visible to the human eye in your parked space ship, but you certainly could take a long exposure with a very sensitive camera and get awesome colors.

    The Orion nebula is large/close enough to be seen without any telescope, but too faint to see without.

  23. Does a human brain a human make? on Artificial Brain '10 Years Away' · · Score: 1

    Babies don't do a whole lot after they are born. Perhaps they can model an adult brain from the start, but I doubt it will act very human without years of experiencing the sensory
    input of a human body. The way the human senses are wired to the brain I suspect has a lot to do with how the brain is segmented into areas with specific tasks. What a human brain-like lump of simulated neurons will be able to do is anyones guess. I'm sure looking forward to any experiments, even though this opens up a pandora's box of ethical dilemmas.
    Will the simulated brain feel pain? Have fears?

    Henry Markram seems too optimistic, but if he's right then this might be the starting shot for the singularity.

  24. Horace goes skiing! on Japanese Researchers Create Skiing Robot · · Score: 2, Insightful
  25. Try to be positive! on Black Holes From the LHC Could Last For Minutes · · Score: 1

    If the LHC creates a black hole that swallows the earth, at least we will have solved Fermi's Paradox.