A circuit for a hearing aid is *not* a couple of op amps. A reasonable hearing aid will have a few microphones, A/D and D/A converters, a CPU that does the DSP needed for beamforming, spectrum identification, filtering and equalization. Of course the A/D, D/A and CPU are probably one chip. It packs about as much processing power as an early 386-based PC, I'd think. Less memory, but only by an order of magnitude or two.
The tailoring to ear's shape is done in a mass-production style lab where they cast/machine the insert pieces. Just like modern dental labs. All those almost put Ford's early serial production lines to shame:)
The setting of the hearing aid's transfer function, or even a set of transfer functions if they should vary with sound level, is not hard at all. This is all well known digital signal processing, nothing inherently costly or complex about it.
Uh... are you saying child porn enthusiasts don't effectively support the exploitation of children? Because they do.
Obviously child exploiters are oracles who know exactly how many basement dwellers download the stuff off of a torrent somewhere. And they get paid for those downloads, too -- a tooth fairy comes to them at night and drops coins, one for each download. What were you saying, again?
If you didn't know, illegal porn usually is distributed in two ways: free downloads off torrent and generic upload sites, and exchange of original content with similarly fucked up people. The former way is common, and only "benefits" the recipient. To claim otherwise is silly. That's what I was referring to, and I'm sorry you didn't get that.
The latter way is done in semi-closed clubs where to get in you get to submit original content -- it's a barter transaction. I'd have hoped that process has been hashed out here often enough to become common knowledge. No money changes hands, but you do indeed have to engage in exploitation in order to produce the content to gain access. I'm not claiming this doesn't support exploitation, because duh, it obviously does. Yet it's an insignificant portion of the overall illegal porn traffic(king). I have no excuses for content producers here, and if you produce the content, for whichever reason -- perhaps as a form of barter payment, I'd as well see you in prison.
This is fine and dandy if you're an oracle and can be absolutely certain that you have to kill or else be killed. It's rather rare that it's the case. Even big bad empires eventually fall apart. Soviet Russia disintegrated from within. I have no doubt that Hitler's empire would face a similar fate, should they have prevailed.
Your stance is the stance of people who insist that viewing illegal porn should be severely punishable, because you're "supporting" the makers of the same, whether your paid them and/or had any influence on them, or not. We're usually not ultimately responsible for actions of others. You are somehow incorrectly assuming that just because our ancestors did bad shit, there's a binary choice between using the ill-begotten fruits of their labor or living in the woods on berries. Oh, and the former makes you a hypocrite (or else!), and that by using those fruits-of-labor we're actively supporting them. Watch kiddie porn, use the fruits of years of pharamcological research, make teenagers and puppies suffer. Yeah, sounds logical to me. </sarcasm>
You're also presupposing that animal testing had a big role in the medical state of the art today. I'd think its role isn't critical at all, and that in future not too far away we will be able to do without any animal testing. Animals are quite poor models even when it comes to eating the same food we do -- there's plenty of stuff we eat that's toxic to common house pets. Animals are more useful at gaining understanding of how things work -- basic science is where real value of animals was, and perhaps still is. Things like dog joint models come to mind.
So, in essence, you wouldn't sacrifice yourself for anyone, then. Neither would you consider the fact that humans can choose between being driven by instincts and doing something else. Nature tells us, yet we can choose what to do. We're not animals, you know. Nature would tell you to fuck every childbearing age woman in sight, yet, presumably, you don't do that, huh?
I'm a geek and while I love the idea of USB microscoped, the cameras in them aren't all that great. It costs money to do right. I'd think that you can get a beautiful unpowered optical microscope on eBay or Cragislist. Make sure it's got 2 oculars and 3 or 4 objective lenses, with immersion. For use inside, a LED flashlight works quite well as a light source. You'd also be well advised to read up on stains. They make optical microscopy way more fun.
This is perhaps one of the most insightful comments in this discussion. I always had a problem with this "how many bits are in your password" approach: to calculate it, you need to presuppose a certain order in search space exploration. Otherwise the password strength measure makes absolutely no sense and is just pulled out of one's ass.
Blast shield for magnesium? Sure it burns hot and splatters, but if you burn it curled up in a tiny crucible, and wear long fire resistant gloves, you can hold the crucible in your hand. Just don't look at it from above.
I don't think you can call it a different name ("perspective") and pretend the problem doesn't exist. The perspective you mention is about applying the historical knowledge in making decisions. Those decisions, you imply, are better when you somehow make them while taking historical facts into account (how? who the heck knows). It's testable, you know, and it's all about predictions. You predict that the decision-making outcome is better when you somehow (magically?) apply history to it.
You also imply that this "underestimat[ion of] the intelligence and goodwill of people who lived [ago]" is somehow necessary to make correct (or better) decisions. If not -- why mention it at all in this discussion? Sure it can make you feel better, but is it any good otherwise?
The rocess that takes you from the facts (the body of historical knowledge) to decisions is left up for everyone to figure out. Heck, you claim that the outcome of such historically-bolstered process is bound to be better. Now you better had some papers to cite to show that it's true, because otherwise it's just a bunch of hogwash to me.
Sorry, but that's the same mistake that's being made in a lot of sociology: they collect the data like crazy, and pretend it's of some use, but it's not for them to figure out how to use it. Making use of history in deciding things, as far as I can tell, requires applying a rather careful process that has solid foundations in science, just like applying any other experimental results.
It usually is, unfortunately -- in the U.S., that is. It's a big social club, like a mutual adoration society, closed to outsiders. That's not very healthy for the long term progress, you know.
What passes for social skills in the U.S. is often considered ass licking and being stupid in other parts of the world. What you refer to is normal, but that's not nearly what's going on at the campuses.
And then there's assembly, where everything depends on vintage. There are some seriously inspiring architectures like my fave XMOS XS-1 with its hardware resource management in old mainframe style, but all packaged in a limber teenage body.
Wait a minute, they are being paid an equivalent of what a corps-de-ballet ballerina gets in a decent U.S. company (~$30k/year), perhaps a bit less because I doubt they get any health benefits. And all they have to show for it is a reasonable figure and a reasonable face. What the fuck do they complain about I don't know. Ballerinas get ogled all the same, yet they have to take hours classes each day, and they are abusing their bodies and literally wear out various moving parts. Give me a break, whiners.
I don't think that a common cultural background is needed to live well together. I find it way more interesting to live with people who share little cultural background. Perhaps it's just me.
It seems that the only value of general education courses is in making you fit in with other people who think the same. I'm yet to find anything to show otherwise. I'm serious. I'm not saying that nothing else but science should be of any interest. Quite to the contrary, I find it pleasurable to explore areas of theatre and literature that interest me. I'm not going to pretend it's of any use other than giving me the pleasure of learning it. It may perhaps improve my writing a bit, but that's not very important.
The problem I find with this crazy old fashion idea is that there's no way tell if it actually amounts to much, if anything. All I always hear is from people who believe in the idea pronouncing that the world will end because people are not up to snuff on their [insert subject name here]. All I can see in real life is people who get suckered because they fail at fairly basic applied natural sciences, math, psychology, sociology, finance, etc. None of the arts and other humanities seem to matter at all. Even history is exaggerated, because on its own it's just a big body of experimental results, so to speak, with no theories as to how one would apply them to anything. Similar to a lot of psychology and sociology, of course. People point to stuff happening in the past and say: see, had people known this, they'd have averted problem X. And it keeps getting repeated and taken in on faith, with not a single decent study to show that it's actually so. Sad.
So, you say, it's a meritocracy where ass licking skills are what matters instead of academics. Yeah, I've been to a U.S. school too, and while the quality of education was way better than what I had in Europe, the social side of it was a disaster. I tried to stay on campus only for the classes and library time.
In the case of the village I don't really know if they did really copy what was important. Did the buildings merely have same exterior and interior dimensions and decorations, or were they actually built using similar materials? Alpine building is usually stone, masonry or concrete lower floor(s) with wooden upper floors. The lower floor(s) survive avalanches and fires, and are very pleasant in the summer due to the thermal mass of the thick walls. Upper floors are admittedly a fire hazard in the summer, because the wood is bone dry, but at least the dryness makes it easier in the heat: perspiration does cool you down. Having such construction in a high-moisture area (say in Florida) would not be any good. Faux chalets that are unlivable in summer without air conditioning are just sad.
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A circuit for a hearing aid is *not* a couple of op amps. A reasonable hearing aid will have a few microphones, A/D and D/A converters, a CPU that does the DSP needed for beamforming, spectrum identification, filtering and equalization. Of course the A/D, D/A and CPU are probably one chip. It packs about as much processing power as an early 386-based PC, I'd think. Less memory, but only by an order of magnitude or two.
The tailoring to ear's shape is done in a mass-production style lab where they cast/machine the insert pieces. Just like modern dental labs. All those almost put Ford's early serial production lines to shame :)
The setting of the hearing aid's transfer function, or even a set of transfer functions if they should vary with sound level, is not hard at all. This is all well known digital signal processing, nothing inherently costly or complex about it.
Uh... are you saying child porn enthusiasts don't effectively support the exploitation of children? Because they do.
Obviously child exploiters are oracles who know exactly how many basement dwellers download the stuff off of a torrent somewhere. And they get paid for those downloads, too -- a tooth fairy comes to them at night and drops coins, one for each download. What were you saying, again?
If you didn't know, illegal porn usually is distributed in two ways: free downloads off torrent and generic upload sites, and exchange of original content with similarly fucked up people. The former way is common, and only "benefits" the recipient. To claim otherwise is silly. That's what I was referring to, and I'm sorry you didn't get that.
The latter way is done in semi-closed clubs where to get in you get to submit original content -- it's a barter transaction. I'd have hoped that process has been hashed out here often enough to become common knowledge. No money changes hands, but you do indeed have to engage in exploitation in order to produce the content to gain access. I'm not claiming this doesn't support exploitation, because duh, it obviously does. Yet it's an insignificant portion of the overall illegal porn traffic(king). I have no excuses for content producers here, and if you produce the content, for whichever reason -- perhaps as a form of barter payment, I'd as well see you in prison.
(apologies for improper tenses in the conditionals, it's too early in the morning for me)
This is fine and dandy if you're an oracle and can be absolutely certain that you have to kill or else be killed. It's rather rare that it's the case. Even big bad empires eventually fall apart. Soviet Russia disintegrated from within. I have no doubt that Hitler's empire would face a similar fate, should they have prevailed.
Your stance is the stance of people who insist that viewing illegal porn should be severely punishable, because you're "supporting" the makers of the same, whether your paid them and/or had any influence on them, or not. We're usually not ultimately responsible for actions of others. You are somehow incorrectly assuming that just because our ancestors did bad shit, there's a binary choice between using the ill-begotten fruits of their labor or living in the woods on berries. Oh, and the former makes you a hypocrite (or else!), and that by using those fruits-of-labor we're actively supporting them. Watch kiddie porn, use the fruits of years of pharamcological research, make teenagers and puppies suffer. Yeah, sounds logical to me. </sarcasm>
You're also presupposing that animal testing had a big role in the medical state of the art today. I'd think its role isn't critical at all, and that in future not too far away we will be able to do without any animal testing. Animals are quite poor models even when it comes to eating the same food we do -- there's plenty of stuff we eat that's toxic to common house pets. Animals are more useful at gaining understanding of how things work -- basic science is where real value of animals was, and perhaps still is. Things like dog joint models come to mind.
So, in essence, you wouldn't sacrifice yourself for anyone, then. Neither would you consider the fact that humans can choose between being driven by instincts and doing something else. Nature tells us, yet we can choose what to do. We're not animals, you know. Nature would tell you to fuck every childbearing age woman in sight, yet, presumably, you don't do that, huh?
I'm a geek and while I love the idea of USB microscoped, the cameras in them aren't all that great. It costs money to do right. I'd think that you can get a beautiful unpowered optical microscope on eBay or Cragislist. Make sure it's got 2 oculars and 3 or 4 objective lenses, with immersion. For use inside, a LED flashlight works quite well as a light source. You'd also be well advised to read up on stains. They make optical microscopy way more fun.
Because the university social life was regrettably bad. That's why I didn't participate in it. In a Big 10 school, too.
This is perhaps one of the most insightful comments in this discussion. I always had a problem with this "how many bits are in your password" approach: to calculate it, you need to presuppose a certain order in search space exploration. Otherwise the password strength measure makes absolutely no sense and is just pulled out of one's ass.
Yeah, but I find humanities to be the least applicable when you deal with manipulation. You need solid fundamentals of sciences, though.
Blast shield for magnesium? Sure it burns hot and splatters, but if you burn it curled up in a tiny crucible, and wear long fire resistant gloves, you can hold the crucible in your hand. Just don't look at it from above.
I don't think you can call it a different name ("perspective") and pretend the problem doesn't exist. The perspective you mention is about applying the historical knowledge in making decisions. Those decisions, you imply, are better when you somehow make them while taking historical facts into account (how? who the heck knows). It's testable, you know, and it's all about predictions. You predict that the decision-making outcome is better when you somehow (magically?) apply history to it.
You also imply that this "underestimat[ion of] the intelligence and goodwill of people who lived [ago]" is somehow necessary to make correct (or better) decisions. If not -- why mention it at all in this discussion? Sure it can make you feel better, but is it any good otherwise?
The rocess that takes you from the facts (the body of historical knowledge) to decisions is left up for everyone to figure out. Heck, you claim that the outcome of such historically-bolstered process is bound to be better. Now you better had some papers to cite to show that it's true, because otherwise it's just a bunch of hogwash to me.
Sorry, but that's the same mistake that's being made in a lot of sociology: they collect the data like crazy, and pretend it's of some use, but it's not for them to figure out how to use it. Making use of history in deciding things, as far as I can tell, requires applying a rather careful process that has solid foundations in science, just like applying any other experimental results.
It usually is, unfortunately -- in the U.S., that is. It's a big social club, like a mutual adoration society, closed to outsiders. That's not very healthy for the long term progress, you know.
What passes for social skills in the U.S. is often considered ass licking and being stupid in other parts of the world. What you refer to is normal, but that's not nearly what's going on at the campuses.
And then there's assembly, where everything depends on vintage. There are some seriously inspiring architectures like my fave XMOS XS-1 with its hardware resource management in old mainframe style, but all packaged in a limber teenage body.
Wait a minute, they are being paid an equivalent of what a corps-de-ballet ballerina gets in a decent U.S. company (~$30k/year), perhaps a bit less because I doubt they get any health benefits. And all they have to show for it is a reasonable figure and a reasonable face. What the fuck do they complain about I don't know. Ballerinas get ogled all the same, yet they have to take hours classes each day, and they are abusing their bodies and literally wear out various moving parts. Give me a break, whiners.
Fuck NO. I had work, friends and family, that filled up my extracurriculars allright.
I don't think that a common cultural background is needed to live well together. I find it way more interesting to live with people who share little cultural background. Perhaps it's just me.
It seems that the only value of general education courses is in making you fit in with other people who think the same. I'm yet to find anything to show otherwise. I'm serious. I'm not saying that nothing else but science should be of any interest. Quite to the contrary, I find it pleasurable to explore areas of theatre and literature that interest me. I'm not going to pretend it's of any use other than giving me the pleasure of learning it. It may perhaps improve my writing a bit, but that's not very important.
The problem I find with this crazy old fashion idea is that there's no way tell if it actually amounts to much, if anything. All I always hear is from people who believe in the idea pronouncing that the world will end because people are not up to snuff on their [insert subject name here]. All I can see in real life is people who get suckered because they fail at fairly basic applied natural sciences, math, psychology, sociology, finance, etc. None of the arts and other humanities seem to matter at all. Even history is exaggerated, because on its own it's just a big body of experimental results, so to speak, with no theories as to how one would apply them to anything. Similar to a lot of psychology and sociology, of course. People point to stuff happening in the past and say: see, had people known this, they'd have averted problem X. And it keeps getting repeated and taken in on faith, with not a single decent study to show that it's actually so. Sad.
It's very sad that those connections matter. School should be about what you know and what you can do, not about your ass licking skills :(
So, you say, it's a meritocracy where ass licking skills are what matters instead of academics. Yeah, I've been to a U.S. school too, and while the quality of education was way better than what I had in Europe, the social side of it was a disaster. I tried to stay on campus only for the classes and library time.
In the case of the village I don't really know if they did really copy what was important. Did the buildings merely have same exterior and interior dimensions and decorations, or were they actually built using similar materials? Alpine building is usually stone, masonry or concrete lower floor(s) with wooden upper floors. The lower floor(s) survive avalanches and fires, and are very pleasant in the summer due to the thermal mass of the thick walls. Upper floors are admittedly a fire hazard in the summer, because the wood is bone dry, but at least the dryness makes it easier in the heat: perspiration does cool you down. Having such construction in a high-moisture area (say in Florida) would not be any good. Faux chalets that are unlivable in summer without air conditioning are just sad.