"
P.S. I can't recall any non-believers being killed by Bhuddists or other non-deistic religions. Care to back that up?
"
Way off base.
Last year I read of at least 2 whole-village slaughers between rival Buddhist dojos.
(Just like Northern Ireland - if you wore green near the orange ones, you'd be mincemeat)
Christianity has a lot more power to do a little harm to billions of people, and it often does so. Scientology has power to do vast amounts of harm to fewer people. It's hard to compare the two.
Occasionally, though, Christians even make the Scientologists look harmless -
I personally view Mother Teresa of Calcutta to have been one of the most evil humans to have ever lived. She has enforced suffering on probably an eighth of a billion people due to her not permitting the distribution of contraceptives in societies which could not support their offspring.
What about the small ones who try to fight, and go bankrupt in the process?
Personally I think that money extorted under false pretences should be recoverable. That would be the Darwinism I'm looking for - patent something stooopid, and get fucked upside the head a few years later when everyone who ever paid you comes demanding their money back. That puts the frighteners on those making the dumbass patents.
You can redirect the cynicism another way.
Maybe he's just trying to mop up _all_ the "small guy" support. Everyone's fighing for a share of the big money, but he's looking in the opposite direction. He's going for the "anti-big business buck", to utterly misquote Bill Hicks.
Popularity leads to having a bigger name, which leads to more big bucks following him later?
Building/Housing associations in Helsinki have been doing this for a few years now. Basically everyone who wants it gets 10Mb/s ethernet to their flat, and it's switched in the basement onto fibre optics straight to the ISP.
The waiting lists for these flats (they're new flats) are 18 months long.
I hear that housing development companies in Stockholm (Sweden) have the same attitude as well.
By using the self-decrypting technique the original author uses to compress all instances of 'pack', I believe I've been able to compress it by another 15-20 characters. I save over 40 characters, but the expansion is 20.
I'll post it to David Touretsky's site once I've tested it. (It's taking for ever to decode even a few K on my old machine).
That's why I didn't mention them initially, as they're in that grey area at the edge of science.
They are inelegant, i.e. lack one of the qualities that appeals to the scientist in me. They also have been formulated in such a way that a simple mathematician such as myself cannot fully understand them, so I can't even make a judgement from a position of knowledge.
OK, OK, I'll admit it, I think they're a hack too!
Very rude to reply to self, but I ought to.
The EPR gedanken experiment disproves _local_ hidden variables, there are non-local theories which are too confusing for me, have not been disproved. See the sci.physics FAQ for more info (there are sci.physics mirrors everywhere, but rtfm.mit.edu is a useful one to rememeber for access to any FAQ).
One of the top few. Each has a few _viewer-pullers_. Taking 'few'==3, that's 9. So the big networks then are only fighting over the places 10-20 with the other programs.
Get a perspective, please.
It doesn't have to be that way.
In the same way that you can go into Linux from DOS (loadlin), is it possible to change operating systems without a full reboot.
Remember, the BIOS itself can be considered to be "an operating system", it's just a rather rudimentary one. Mine has "applications" such as Hard Disk tools, and is "preemptive" as when I'm on the basic BIOS settings screen the real time clock on screen is updates whilst I'm editing other fields.
The 'unusual' thing (for an OS) needed for this OS flipping to work is that the bootstrap OS must be willing to _give up_ its control. This must be done with great care. Remember, the kernel is there in order to keep control in a traditional scenario. However all you really need to do in the general case is to request a GDT code segment with Ring 0 permission, get yourself full I/O port permission, and a new segment the the IVT (interrupt vector table) then disable interrupts, change Interrupt table, and jump to your new code, and reenable interrupts again.
Einstein Poldovsky Rosen Hidden Variable Theory leads to contradictions which can be physically demonstrated to disprove the theory. The "EPR" experiment, it is called, named after those three.
This is why Quantum Mechanics caused such a stir when it was first posited. Even some of the best minds in the world refused to believe that the state of something could remain undecided.
The spin/polarisation/whatever _is_ unknown, and is described by a complex (x+iy) probability function, only upon measurement does the spin/whatever briefly enter a known state, but this precision starts to fade instantly. The real probability of it being in a particular state is the absolute value, or amplitude, |x+iy| = sqrt(x^2+y^2) of the complex wave function.
For example, it has been shown that you can artificially keep particles with a constant spin by continually testing their spin. As you test it you get a true/false result, meaning that you've either got the spin you want, or you have the opposite. If you test it again almost instantly, the wave function hasn't had enough time to make the opposite state particularly likely, and so you almost always get the same spin result, time after time after time.
If I'm not mistaken the 'bt' in bttv stands for "Brooktree", which are the manufacturer of one of the most common chips used in motion vieo applications.
OK, by just supporting one chip they cover the lions share, but there are other chips out there which aren't supported.
Of course, given that the whole thing is non-commercial we shouldn't complain, if anything we should credit them for the stirling effort that they've already put in to get the support ar broad as it it. (I must look again and see if my ATI is now supported..., if not, it's bloody ATI's fault, grrr!)
I lived up two flights of stairs, but the second flight was to an attic room. Anyone over 5' tall has to _duck_ to get up the stairs, which were also only about 30" wide. (screw fire regulations: according to the local council noone lived in that room, but hey, the rent was cheap).
The stairs also had _3_ doglegs.
The Eizo _was_ unpacked before I even tried to get it up that final flight. It also had to rest on 6" wide strips of all 6 possible sides during its journey up the stairs, as the only way to move it was to _roll_ it.
Oh - what's this "delivery guy" nonsense?
OK, supersample. say we have 9 jittered samples per pixel. We then 'average' these 9 values onto one displayed pixel.
for example:
ABC MMM
DEF => MMM where M=mean(A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I)
GHI MMM
Agree? (the precise average does not have to be the aritmetic mean, it could easily be the median)
Now consider a 3x3 image, which I wish to blur completely
ABC MMM
DEF => MMM where M=mean(A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I)
GHI MMM
See any similarity?
Both operations are the _moving_ of information where it did not originally come from. (I know, so it a "sharpen", but this is beside the point).
The information which from 'I' in the original image has moved so that it is now in all other 8 sub-pixel regions (by using the mean it is evenly spread across all 9).
That is why an anti-aliased line is _wider_ than the infinite precision line it represents.
A one pixel high horizontal line exaclt mid-way between to pixel locations:
___________ - one pixel at 50%
~~~~~~~~~~~ - one pixel at 50%
compared to the original
=========== - one pixel at 100%
The top line is _2_ pixels high, but the line is only one wide.
So I reiterate - anti-aliasing is bluring. It's a special kind of blur, admitedly, but deep down it's a blur.
Still not convinced?
4 words - Foley and Van Damme (_not Jean Claude_)
Slashdot Mirror
"
P.S. I can't recall any non-believers being killed by Bhuddists or other non-deistic religions. Care to back that up?
"
Way off base.
Last year I read of at least 2 whole-village slaughers between rival Buddhist dojos.
(Just like Northern Ireland - if you wore green near the orange ones, you'd be mincemeat)
FP.
--
Christianity has a lot more power to do a little harm to billions of people, and it often does so. Scientology has power to do vast amounts of harm to fewer people. It's hard to compare the two.
Occasionally, though, Christians even make the Scientologists look harmless -
I personally view Mother Teresa of Calcutta to have been one of the most evil humans to have ever lived. She has enforced suffering on probably an eighth of a billion people due to her not permitting the distribution of contraceptives in societies which could not support their offspring.
(Spot the died-again atheist...)
FatPhil
--
You read too much Tolkien
FP.
--
What about the small ones who try to fight, and go bankrupt in the process?
Personally I think that money extorted under false pretences should be recoverable. That would be the Darwinism I'm looking for - patent something stooopid, and get fucked upside the head a few years later when everyone who ever paid you comes demanding their money back. That puts the frighteners on those making the dumbass patents.
FP.
--
Oh for moderator points today...
FP.
--
You can redirect the cynicism another way.
Maybe he's just trying to mop up _all_ the "small guy" support. Everyone's fighing for a share of the big money, but he's looking in the opposite direction. He's going for the "anti-big business buck", to utterly misquote Bill Hicks.
Popularity leads to having a bigger name, which leads to more big bucks following him later?
Dunno.
FP.
--
Building/Housing associations in Helsinki have been doing this for a few years now. Basically everyone who wants it gets 10Mb/s ethernet to their flat, and it's switched in the basement onto fibre optics straight to the ISP.
The waiting lists for these flats (they're new flats) are 18 months long.
I hear that housing development companies in Stockholm (Sweden) have the same attitude as well.
FatPhil.
--
"
a robot that lays fiber-optic lines in city sewers. [...] a few stories about wiring (is that the right term for running fiber-optic cable?)
"
The correct term is obviously "laying cable", which is why it involves sewers.
FP.
(is that just an English slang term?)
--
By using the self-decrypting technique the original author uses to compress all instances of 'pack', I believe I've been able to compress it by another 15-20 characters. I save over 40 characters, but the expansion is 20.
I'll post it to David Touretsky's site once I've tested it. (It's taking for ever to decode even a few K on my old machine).
FatPhil
--
Very well worded ;-)
That's why I didn't mention them initially, as they're in that grey area at the edge of science.
They are inelegant, i.e. lack one of the qualities that appeals to the scientist in me. They also have been formulated in such a way that a simple mathematician such as myself cannot fully understand them, so I can't even make a judgement from a position of knowledge.
OK, OK, I'll admit it, I think they're a hack too!
FP.
--
Very rude to reply to self, but I ought to.
The EPR gedanken experiment disproves _local_ hidden variables, there are non-local theories which are too confusing for me, have not been disproved. See the sci.physics FAQ for more info (there are sci.physics mirrors everywhere, but rtfm.mit.edu is a useful one to rememeber for access to any FAQ).
FP.
--
One of the top few. Each has a few _viewer-pullers_. Taking 'few'==3, that's 9. So the big networks then are only fighting over the places 10-20 with the other programs.
Get a perspective, please.
FP.
--
It doesn't have to be that way.
In the same way that you can go into Linux from DOS (loadlin), is it possible to change operating systems without a full reboot.
Remember, the BIOS itself can be considered to be "an operating system", it's just a rather rudimentary one. Mine has "applications" such as Hard Disk tools, and is "preemptive" as when I'm on the basic BIOS settings screen the real time clock on screen is updates whilst I'm editing other fields.
The 'unusual' thing (for an OS) needed for this OS flipping to work is that the bootstrap OS must be willing to _give up_ its control. This must be done with great care. Remember, the kernel is there in order to keep control in a traditional scenario. However all you really need to do in the general case is to request a GDT code segment with Ring 0 permission, get yourself full I/O port permission, and a new segment the the IVT (interrupt vector table) then disable interrupts, change Interrupt table, and jump to your new code, and reenable interrupts again.
Voila!
FatPhil
--
Yeah, but you seem to be a Debian user, and /. readers prefer Mandrake this week, so don't expect to be modded up, or anything like that!
FP.
(if I have to say '+1 funny not -1 troll', then it probably wasn't funny, was it? Ooops)
--
Bandwidth is 50 times wider than you guess, 2 sidebands.
FP.
--
Einstein Poldovsky Rosen Hidden Variable Theory leads to contradictions which can be physically demonstrated to disprove the theory. The "EPR" experiment, it is called, named after those three.
FatPhil
--
Sorry, you are utterly off base.
This is why Quantum Mechanics caused such a stir when it was first posited. Even some of the best minds in the world refused to believe that the state of something could remain undecided.
The spin/polarisation/whatever _is_ unknown, and is described by a complex (x+iy) probability function, only upon measurement does the spin/whatever briefly enter a known state, but this precision starts to fade instantly. The real probability of it being in a particular state is the absolute value, or amplitude, |x+iy| = sqrt(x^2+y^2) of the complex wave function.
For example, it has been shown that you can artificially keep particles with a constant spin by continually testing their spin. As you test it you get a true/false result, meaning that you've either got the spin you want, or you have the opposite. If you test it again almost instantly, the wave function hasn't had enough time to make the opposite state particularly likely, and so you almost always get the same spin result, time after time after time.
FatPhil
--
If I'm not mistaken the 'bt' in bttv stands for "Brooktree", which are the manufacturer of one of the most common chips used in motion vieo applications.
OK, by just supporting one chip they cover the lions share, but there are other chips out there which aren't supported.
Of course, given that the whole thing is non-commercial we shouldn't complain, if anything we should credit them for the stirling effort that they've already put in to get the support ar broad as it it. (I must look again and see if my ATI is now supported..., if not, it's bloody ATI's fault, grrr!)
FP.
--
I lived up two flights of stairs, but the second flight was to an attic room. Anyone over 5' tall has to _duck_ to get up the stairs, which were also only about 30" wide. (screw fire regulations: according to the local council noone lived in that room, but hey, the rent was cheap).
The stairs also had _3_ doglegs.
The Eizo _was_ unpacked before I even tried to get it up that final flight. It also had to rest on 6" wide strips of all 6 possible sides during its journey up the stairs, as the only way to move it was to _roll_ it.
Oh - what's this "delivery guy" nonsense?
Never again...
Phil
--
OK, supersample. say we have 9 jittered samples per pixel. We then 'average' these 9 values onto one displayed pixel.
for example:
ABC MMM
DEF => MMM where M=mean(A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I)
GHI MMM
Agree? (the precise average does not have to be the aritmetic mean, it could easily be the median)
Now consider a 3x3 image, which I wish to blur completely
ABC MMM
DEF => MMM where M=mean(A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I)
GHI MMM
See any similarity?
Both operations are the _moving_ of information where it did not originally come from. (I know, so it a "sharpen", but this is beside the point).
The information which from 'I' in the original image has moved so that it is now in all other 8 sub-pixel regions (by using the mean it is evenly spread across all 9).
That is why an anti-aliased line is _wider_ than the infinite precision line it represents.
A one pixel high horizontal line exaclt mid-way between to pixel locations:
___________ - one pixel at 50%
~~~~~~~~~~~ - one pixel at 50%
compared to the original
=========== - one pixel at 100%
The top line is _2_ pixels high, but the line is only one wide.
So I reiterate - anti-aliasing is bluring. It's a special kind of blur, admitedly, but deep down it's a blur.
Still not convinced?
4 words - Foley and Van Damme (_not Jean Claude_)
FatPhil
--
I know. I was going to say that I must be really think^H^Hck, but then thought that was a lousy joke so didn't.
--
I apologise for the slur.
Phil
--
You are soooo far off base here.
You should be looking at 2-3% maximum. Do you know nothing about the way the distribution works?
FatPhil
--
Was that "blurring" or "Anti-aliasing"?
Remember, anti-aliasing is blurring, after all.
The other followup is also correct.
FatPhil
--
sorry how can I mistype "thick" twice?
(too early in the bloody morning, that's how)
FP.
--