Why can't we just get rid of this stereotype of technically-adept people being antisocial when it is patently untrue? I know plenty of technically adept people - programmers, scientists, engineers - and would not describe any of them as 'geeks', indeed they would object very strongly if I did so. Being handy with machines does not preclude you from having a life, going clubbing, having an interest in art or music or the theatre, enjoying a drink with friends, participating in a sport or outdoor activity or any of the other sociable activites that most people consider as the norm.
I know programmers who are DJs, captains of footie teams, mountaineers, mothers, artists - all sociable human beings.
The geek-pride assumption that it is somehow cool to spend fourteen hours in front of a screen, eat junk food and have no human contact except with other Jolt-addled spods on IRC creates a stereotype which tars all techies with the same brush - which I for one do not welcome.
If you're a sad bastard in desperate need of some exercise, fresh air, a bath and a lay - fine. But don't go around broadcasting this as some kind of geek ideal - you give all us normal techies a bad name.
I work every day with satellite data from 10m to 1km and aerial data down to 15cm. At work I have a perfectly ordinary SGI O2 running Erdas Imagine. At home I have a perfectly ordinary home-build AMD K6-2 running ENVI (under linux of course...) I run the full gamut of image processing techniques - all on bog standard hardware.
There is plenty of free image processing software out there - if you're old school try GRASS, if you want to get involved in the development of a more modern system try LIMP.
Hmm, I thought stochastic resonance relied on the presence of a regular periodic signal (e.g. spring green-up of vegetation)? I'm not sure if the sudden appearence or dissapearence of an object in the scene would be compatible with stochatic resonance methods...
BTW, what's your background - any reason why you're posting as an AC?
Thinking about your false star suggestion. We DO use field targets for calibration - the AVHRR sensors are calibrated off White Sands. However this is purely for instrument drift. One other problem I had is that false star relies on you having a deformable mirror and this would be very hard to do in micro-gravity.
Umm, yeah but having revisit means that you can image the same swath from either adjacent swath. For SPOT this means that you get three shots per 28 day period. But those three shots are all on consecutive days - so if there happens to be a depression sitting over your target you're stil SOL.
That's a general limit across the solar reflective spectrum (400-4000 nm). The atmospheric effects involved in remote sensing are:
Raleigh scattering - molecular scattering from gaseous atmospheric species. Goes as one over lambda to the 4. This is the reason why 'blue' spectral bands are useless for actually looking at the surface - it's also why the sky is blue...
Aerosol scattering - this is all those pesky dust particles, water droplets and ice particles. generally asymmetric. Can be modelled using Mie theory. Rainbows are an obvious side effect.
Absorption - the obvious ones - H2O, CO2 some trace gases. All these species have different absorption spectra - H2O (vapour) has two massive absorption bands in the mid-IR. Aerosols also absorb. UV absorption is behind the O3 layer.
Another effect to take into account is that maximum radiance is at about 550 nm - you're severly limited past the NIR by the fact that there ain't that much energy coming back up at you - which hurts resolution. Much the same for thermal IR (80m resolution) and passive microwave (tens of km) where the amount of enery is miniscule.
The false star technique relies on shining a laser upwards against an essentially black background. To do the same thing with a satellite you would have to fire the laser downwards - and make sure it lands on a surface with perfectly predictable spectral response. So short of lugging a massive square of BaSO4 around I don't see how this can be done. Also - the footprint of the laser would be a lot bigger than the resolution you are going for. And mounting a 1200W laser on a satellite could be kinda tricky...
There's a theoretical limit (determined by the scale length of atmospheric turbulence) of 15cm. It is safe to assume that surveillance satellites operate at this resolution. Of course, they would only actually obtain this resolution on very calm, clear days with a stable atmosphere.
Oh and they can't see through clouds either... (active microwave can but that's a different matter)
See my earlier post. Traditionally, copyright infringement has been hard to prove but part of the Woolf reforms was to simplify and reduce the costs of tort actions such as this. Remember also that lawyers also charge rather less in the UK than in the US. I spoke to my Mum (who is a solicitor) and she said that £25 would be reasonable for an initial letter. He may even be able to get half an hour's advide for free under the legal aid scheme.
Also, filing for a High Court hearing won't cost anything. My sister did it when a garage claimed that she had agreed to sell them her car when she had only brought it in for servicing. Needless to say it never went to court and she got her car back in pretty short order.
Satellite repeat intervals are a function of swath width - which itself is a direct function of resolution. Low resolution sensors, such as AVHRR on the NOAA platforms and the project we're working on, MODIS, have a 24hr5 repeat, but they also have a spatial resolution of 1km - great for vegetation mapping, surface BRDF/albedo, ice, cloud studies, ocean colour etc. Not so good for spying.
High resolution sensors such as Landsat TM (25m) and SPOT PAN (10m) have repeat rates of the order of 28 days, as will the new generation of 1m satellites. Actually SPOT has a tilting sensor which gives it a revisit facility as well as the option of producing stereo pairs. This is also a feauture of the new satellites.The repeat period (a month) means that you cannot use these satellites for the kind of surveillance that a lot of people worry about. Combine this with the fact that 80% of the Earth's surface is cloud-covered at any time and you'll see what I mean. These sensors have no thermal infrared capabilities at this resolution so you can't use them for spotting tanks or anything like that. You CAN use it to spot semi-permanent structures such as missile launchers and dug-in tanks - but you've been able to do this with SPOT for a long time.
Another note on resolution - there is a theoretical limit on spatial resolution, determined by atmospheric scattering. It's about 15cm. So a spy sattelite, on a perfectcly clear day, could, just about, be used to tell what kind of car you are driving - certainly not to read the number plate (which is kind of hard from a nadir view anyway). Forget geostationary satellites - they sit at an altitude of 35800km over the equator which means you get oblique views of most stuff, and lousy resolution (15km). They're great for synoptic weather (and telecomms obviously) but that's about it.
The people who should be worrying about the new high-res satellites are the air-survey crews. This could well put them out of a job for medium-scale photogrammetric surveying.
Well most non-Americans think it distinctly odd that if you have a glass of wine with your parents at dinner under the age of 21 you are both guilty of breaking the law. Most other countries have age restrictions on purchasing alcohol (usually 16 or 18) but certainly not on consuming it.
Very strange... You can vote, drive a car, die for your country. But you can't have a quiet pint after class...
He's in the UK and English copyright law applies. We're talking about violation of Enlgish law here and copyright registration is immaterial (it doesn't exist in the UK). The website, even though it is based in the US, would have a hard case to answer in an English High Court.
Under English law you automatically own the copyright to any original work - you do not even need to put a copyright line in any original works - although it does not hurt.
You should contact a solicitor immediately. They will charge you about 25 quid for a Cease and Desist letter. You should also file for a hearing in the High Court. As the website that has infringed your copyright is based in the US they will likely not wish to invoke the cost of instructing solicitors in England and will back down. If they do not answer the case you will definitely get Default Judgement in your favour. You are then free to pursue damages (likely fairly low) and court costs (if you get default judgement this is likely to be very low too.) Damages will be easy to obtain without messing around international claims as McLane Novea New Media very likely have some exposure within the EU.
Contact a solicitor ASAP - you won't make any money, but you will protect your copyright - and protect yourself from any copyright infringement claims by McLane - which would be pursued in US courts and likely be a LOT nastier...
Oh, I didn't realise that medicine was a graduate degree in the US. In the UK you go straight to medical school from high school and do 5 years straight through. You don't have seperate majors, you just study medicine from age 18 and come out qualified 5 years later.
There is only one thing to do in these circumstances: sue. Sue MS for providing access to your data to a third party without your knowledge and sue the NSA for installing surveillance software without a warrant - doesn't matter whether they used it or not.
You probably wouldn't be able to get away with a suit against the NSA in the US, so this needs to be done in France or the UK or somewhere. France would be ideal as investigating magistrates have extraordinary powers and the French are certainly not shy of pissing off the US government. They also have (like the US) little respect for the concept of sovereign immunity and wouldn't think twice about raiding and searching US government facilities on French soil (not that there are very many for this precise reason).
Take the whole thing to the courts and blow the whole shabby deal wide open.
Umm, I don't know where you live, but generally a landlord cannot enter your apartment without your explicit consent unless in an emergency (fire, leaking pipes etc.) If they do, change the locks and charge it to them. Go to your city hall - they usually have a leaflet called 'Tenants' Rights'.
Nick
Re:Benefits of DVD on a desktop machine?
on
DVD for Linux
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· Score: 1
Well, for those of us (like me) who don't actually own a TV it's pretty good - I just wish there were more titles available for rental.
US dual nationals are liable for US federal tax wherever they reside. If you've never paid US federal tax you are liable for back tax (and applicable fines for non-payment). The IRS and State Department announced about two months ago a joint effort to trace US ex-pats who have not paid tax. Better get down to Grosvenor Square and ask for the citizenship-renouncement form...
The specs for the Zoran-based Matrox DVD add-on card (for Millenium/Mysteque/G200 cards) are publically available. Work is in progress to write a driver for this card. Check the LiViD site for more details.
If you hadn't noticed glam rock IS making a come back - what do you think Placebo and Kulashaker are? Oh and did you see Velvet Goldmine? And I would call Pulp and Suede semi-glam anyway...
Actually, saw Kulashaker here a few weeks ago - fab!! It's really good to see a band that would usually play to 5,000 in a club with 500 people.
Some Americans (generally ones wearing overalls and missing several fingers from farming accidents) refer to the insect generally known as cidadas as 'locusts' to the exteme irritation of entomologists. These are the same people who insist on calling bison 'buffalo'.
Unfortunately, we can't ship them all off to the Serengeti to find out the difference at close quarters...
And before anyone flames I spent 3 months fieldwork in Uganda and all last month on Konza Prairie in Kansas and you'd have to be an idiot not to be able to tell the difference - still - not as bad as the Brits who insists on calling a species of maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) 'sycamore'.
I agree about the roads - why should I massively subsidise the interstate highway system when I don't even own a car? Let the people and companies who actually use the roads pay for them. That way I just pay for my indirect use of roads (transportation of goods that I consume). But I definitely object to paying for roads to allow suburbanite assholes to drive their SUVs full of their horrible, fat, spoilt offspring around Boston. If you want to come into the city, get off your fat, overgrown rear and WALK (or cycle, take the T etc).
Well I have heard that the US is a country founded on the lofty ideals of land theft, ethnic cleansing and slavery but I've always thought this a little harsh...
The US has a de facto ID card system that goes beyond the flagrent abuse of Social Security numbers by private companies: try buying a pack of cigarettes, a six pack, getting into a bar, getting into an R-rated movie, without showing a driving licence or passport. In Massachusetts you can't even use a passport to buy a keg. For some reason the state thinks it's easier to fake a passport than a crappy laminated piece of plastic. The fact that we have the most expensive driving licences in the US might have something to do with it...
Slashdot Mirror
I know programmers who are DJs, captains of footie teams, mountaineers, mothers, artists - all sociable human beings.
The geek-pride assumption that it is somehow cool to spend fourteen hours in front of a screen, eat junk food and have no human contact except with other Jolt-addled spods on IRC creates a stereotype which tars all techies with the same brush - which I for one do not welcome.
If you're a sad bastard in desperate need of some exercise, fresh air, a bath and a lay - fine. But don't go around broadcasting this as some kind of geek ideal - you give all us normal techies a bad name.
Nick
There is plenty of free image processing software out there - if you're old school try GRASS, if you want to get involved in the development of a more modern system try LIMP.
Nick
BTW, what's your background - any reason why you're posting as an AC?
Thinking about your false star suggestion. We DO use field targets for calibration - the AVHRR sensors are calibrated off White Sands. However this is purely for instrument drift. One other problem I had is that false star relies on you having a deformable mirror and this would be very hard to do in micro-gravity.
Nick
Nick
- Raleigh scattering - molecular scattering from gaseous atmospheric species. Goes as one over lambda to the 4. This is the reason why 'blue' spectral bands are useless for actually looking at the surface - it's also why the sky is blue...
- Aerosol scattering - this is all those pesky dust particles, water droplets and ice particles. generally asymmetric. Can be modelled using Mie theory. Rainbows are an obvious side effect.
- Absorption - the obvious ones - H2O, CO2 some trace gases. All these species have different absorption spectra - H2O (vapour) has two massive absorption bands in the mid-IR. Aerosols also absorb. UV absorption is behind the O3 layer.
Another effect to take into account is that maximum radiance is at about 550 nm - you're severly limited past the NIR by the fact that there ain't that much energy coming back up at you - which hurts resolution. Much the same for thermal IR (80m resolution) and passive microwave (tens of km) where the amount of enery is miniscule.The false star technique relies on shining a laser upwards against an essentially black background. To do the same thing with a satellite you would have to fire the laser downwards - and make sure it lands on a surface with perfectly predictable spectral response. So short of lugging a massive square of BaSO4 around I don't see how this can be done. Also - the footprint of the laser would be a lot bigger than the resolution you are going for. And mounting a 1200W laser on a satellite could be kinda tricky...
Good questions though.
Nick
Oh and they can't see through clouds either... (active microwave can but that's a different matter)
Nick
Also, filing for a High Court hearing won't cost anything. My sister did it when a garage claimed that she had agreed to sell them her car when she had only brought it in for servicing. Needless to say it never went to court and she got her car back in pretty short order.
Nick
High resolution sensors such as Landsat TM (25m) and SPOT PAN (10m) have repeat rates of the order of 28 days, as will the new generation of 1m satellites. Actually SPOT has a tilting sensor which gives it a revisit facility as well as the option of producing stereo pairs. This is also a feauture of the new satellites.The repeat period (a month) means that you cannot use these satellites for the kind of surveillance that a lot of people worry about. Combine this with the fact that 80% of the Earth's surface is cloud-covered at any time and you'll see what I mean. These sensors have no thermal infrared capabilities at this resolution so you can't use them for spotting tanks or anything like that. You CAN use it to spot semi-permanent structures such as missile launchers and dug-in tanks - but you've been able to do this with SPOT for a long time.
Another note on resolution - there is a theoretical limit on spatial resolution, determined by atmospheric scattering. It's about 15cm. So a spy sattelite, on a perfectcly clear day, could, just about, be used to tell what kind of car you are driving - certainly not to read the number plate (which is kind of hard from a nadir view anyway). Forget geostationary satellites - they sit at an altitude of 35800km over the equator which means you get oblique views of most stuff, and lousy resolution (15km). They're great for synoptic weather (and telecomms obviously) but that's about it.
The people who should be worrying about the new high-res satellites are the air-survey crews. This could well put them out of a job for medium-scale photogrammetric surveying.
Nick Yes
I am a PhD student in remote sensing...
Very strange... You can vote, drive a car, die for your country. But you can't have a quiet pint after class...
Nick
Nick
Nick
Under English law you automatically own the copyright to any original work - you do not even need to put a copyright line in any original works - although it does not hurt.
You should contact a solicitor immediately. They will charge you about 25 quid for a Cease and Desist letter. You should also file for a hearing in the High Court. As the website that has infringed your copyright is based in the US they will likely not wish to invoke the cost of instructing solicitors in England and will back down. If they do not answer the case you will definitely get Default Judgement in your favour. You are then free to pursue damages (likely fairly low) and court costs (if you get default judgement this is likely to be very low too.) Damages will be easy to obtain without messing around international claims as McLane Novea New Media very likely have some exposure within the EU.
Contact a solicitor ASAP - you won't make any money, but you will protect your copyright - and protect yourself from any copyright infringement claims by McLane - which would be pursued in US courts and likely be a LOT nastier...
Nick
Nick
Why would anyone want to take a science degree and then start over again in medical school? Or is there something I'm not getting here?
Nick
You probably wouldn't be able to get away with a suit against the NSA in the US, so this needs to be done in France or the UK or somewhere. France would be ideal as investigating magistrates have extraordinary powers and the French are certainly not shy of pissing off the US government. They also have (like the US) little respect for the concept of sovereign immunity and wouldn't think twice about raiding and searching US government facilities on French soil (not that there are very many for this precise reason).
Take the whole thing to the courts and blow the whole shabby deal wide open.
Nick
Nick
Nick
Nick
Nick
Actually, saw Kulashaker here a few weeks ago - fab!! It's really good to see a band that would usually play to 5,000 in a club with 500 people.
Nick
Unfortunately, we can't ship them all off to the Serengeti to find out the difference at close quarters...
And before anyone flames I spent 3 months fieldwork in Uganda and all last month on Konza Prairie in Kansas and you'd have to be an idiot not to be able to tell the difference - still - not as bad as the Brits who insists on calling a species of maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) 'sycamore'.
You can tell I'm bored can't you?
Nick
Read my initial post, moron. Specifically the bit about indirect payment for road costs through the price of goods I consume.
God, I hate suburbanites...
Nick
Nick
Nick