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User: mfnickster

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  1. Re:Never had a globe? on Boston Public Schools Map Switch Aims To Amend 500 Years of Distortion (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    > Please consider the Dymaxion Map!

    Bah. Which way is North? Every which way!

    Buckminster Fuller was a compass hater and wanted to stamp out the one True North.

  2. Re:Why do you believe that? on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Solve the Instant Messaging Problem? · · Score: 1

    > If I want to brush up on my German, all I have to do is read or listen to a German news source

    http://esperanto-radio.com/

  3. Re:Why do you believe that? on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Solve the Instant Messaging Problem? · · Score: 1

    So faced with the problem of communicating with other people who speak one or several of many other languages, your choce is to pick one that no-one speaks?

    It's more useful in Europe:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasporta_Servo

  4. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto on Robots in Warehouses To Jump 15X Over Next 4 Years (techrepublic.com) · · Score: 1

    Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
    For doing the jobs nobody wants to

  5. Re:making of on Skin deep? Robots To Wear Real Human Tissue (thememo.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but the scenes where the T-1000 flows up from the checkered floor, flows into the helicopter cockpit, walks out of the flames of the truck crash... those are all 100% CGI.

  6. Re:The secondary market as sexbots would make bank on Skin deep? Robots To Wear Real Human Tissue (thememo.com) · · Score: 2

    You should read Rudy Rucker's "Wetware." :)

  7. This is why we need to develop 3D printing and CNC machinery ASAP, so we won't be dependent on mass-produced goods shipped around the world to meet our needs.

    The day we can download a pair of sneakers and have them made on the spot, we will have technology working for us rather than against us.

    Oh, but I guess we'll still have to ship lots of raw materials around... rubber, metal, plastic, wood etc. I don't mind so much if robots do that part.

  8. Brown dwarf system just 6.5 light years away... on Astronomers Discover Third-Closest Star System To Earth · · Score: 0

    ...and it's headed RIGHT FOR US!!!

  9. Re:A hard time keeping on the forefront? on Why Can't Intel Kill x86? · · Score: 1

    > There's a lot more to life than gaming.

    I've seen it. It's rubbish.

  10. Re:I'm sorry, Dave, on 2001: a Space Odyssey's Dave Returns To Sci-fi In New Film · · Score: 1

    Dave: "Open the pod bay doors, please, Hal."
    Hal: "Can you elaborate on that?"
    Dave: "Do you read me, Hal?"
    Hal: "Oh, I read you?"
    Dave: "What's the problem, Hal?"
    Hal: "We were discussing you...not me."
    Dave: "I don't know what you're talking about, Hal."
    Hal: "Does it please you to believe I am talking about ?"
    Dave: "I won't argue with you any more, Hal. Open the doors."
    Hal: "Do you wish to won't argue with me?"
    Dave: "All right, Hal. I'll go in through the emergency airlock."
    Hal: "Dear Aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all."

  11. Re:Silent Running ? on 2001: a Space Odyssey's Dave Returns To Sci-fi In New Film · · Score: 1

    It properly showed weightlessness (in the transit ship), artificial gravity as generated by a giant, rotating space station

    2001 portrayed zero-gee pretty well, but the prediction they made that people would want to "walk" and "stand" in a zero-gee environment using velcro shoes turned out to be way off. It turns out people actually adapt pretty quickly to moving around in zero-gee, and don't need one side of the room to be the "floor" to keep their bearings. Legs are a liability in zero-gee; they just get in the way.

    The scenes in the pod bay are probably the most iffy with respect to the crew's movements. It's supposed to be zero-gee in the pod bay (outside the centrifuge) but you can very plainly see that the AE-35 unit is sitting on the counter when they're testing it, and when Poole and Bowman enter the pod to talk in private, they're very clearly sitting and not floating/anchored. Even stationary people in zero-gee have a kind of "action/reaction" inertia to their movements.

  12. Re:CD's ARE digital on Music Industry Sees First Revenue Increase Since 1999 · · Score: 1

    What is a high enough bit rate and sample rate to make something digital effectively analog?

    This happens whenever the resolution of the digital signal exceeds the ability of the output device to display or play it back.

    For example, if you have an inkjet printer, it sprays dots of ink on the page. Those nozzles have tolerances, and there's a minimum size of the ink splat they can make. If the resolution of your image is greater than the size of that ink splat, it's effectively equivalent to the best output a purely analog representation could deliver.

    Same with a television that has a minimum dot pitch. If you downscale an HD image to standard definition, it's effectively equivalent to the best picture the analog set can display. It all depends on the target output device.

    Or take your stereo - it has limits in terms of frequency response, total harmonic distortion, and signal-to-noise ratio. If the resolution of your digital source exceeds those tolerances, then you have surpassed what an analog input can reproduce on that system.

    Of course, the digital representations have limits too. The ultimately analog circuitry and physical media that store and transmit the digital signal have to be at least accurate enough to represent the digital signal perfectly, so there's really no way for digital to "catch up" to the analog tolerances. They go hand-in-hand.

  13. Re:Next, Perl ? on Python Trademark Filer Ignorant of Python? · · Score: 2

    Mynd you, møøse bites kan be pretty nasti...

  14. Re:Still overdue on Russian Meteor Largest In a Century · · Score: 5, Funny

    If we all posted AC, that might confuchsia.

  15. Re:Texas would like to think of it as a hypothesis on Texas School Board Searching For Alternatives To Evolutionary Theory · · Score: 1

    You can joke about it, but creationists in all seriousness describe evolution as "fairy tales" and "just-so stories."

  16. Re:$3600 ship on How EVE Online Dealt With a 3,000-Player Battle · · Score: 1

    You bet I could! I'm fully instrument-rated on Microsoft Flight Simulator.

  17. Re:Blade Runner anyone...? on Light Field Photography Is the New Path To 3-D · · Score: 1

    Watch this section, from 1:57 to about 2:08:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHepKd38pr0#t=1m57s

    You will see the movement of the door edge that reveals more detail as Deckard tracks and zooms. There's no possible way for a flat, static photo taken from a single POV to do this. It has to be 3D, or layered, or the Esper has to be doing some kind of interpolation from the distorted reflection.

  18. Re:wtf on Why Microsoft Office For iOS Will Likely Never See the Light of Day · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Each version of Word was ported to Windows from the Mac until the much-maligned 5.0 version when they tried to reverse it and failed badly.

    I think you mean Word 6.0 for Mac, which was ungodly slow on most machines. Word 5.1 was highly regarded as the last "good version" of Word on the Mac for many years.

  19. Re:Blade Runner anyone...? on Light Field Photography Is the New Path To 3-D · · Score: 1

    Even a reflection will only give you a single POV from a traditional camera, no matter how high the resolution. But there's definitely a point in the sequence where Deckard tells it to track left, and part of the door edge moves across the background, revealing more of the woman and nightstand behind it. That's the part nitpickers complain about - looking "around" an object in the picture.

  20. Blade Runner anyone...? on Light Field Photography Is the New Path To 3-D · · Score: 1

    Ha! Now all those nitpickers who complained that Deckard's inspection of Leon's photo in his Esper machine shows an impossible "perspective shift" will have to eat their words!

    I guess with a good-sized light field, you really can photograph around corners!

  21. Re:$3600 ship on How EVE Online Dealt With a 3,000-Player Battle · · Score: 2

    Luke: "TEN THOUSAND??? We could almost buy our own ship for that!"

    Ben: It's all right, Luke. I have a cousin who can get us a ship for $3,500.

  22. Ask him about something else! on Interviews: Ask Ray Kurzweil About the Future of Mankind and Technology · · Score: 1

    Ray Kurzweil loves to talk about the Future of Mankind and Technology. Ask him about something else... anything else, please!!!

  23. Re:Pretty sure we know on Scientist Seeks 'Adventurous Human Woman' For Neanderthal Baby · · Score: 1

    Were they superstrong or supersmart? Who knows? But there's one way to find out

    I'm pretty liberal when it comes to bioengineering and research, but it seems like the height of hubris to me to bring a human life into existence just to satisfy scientific curiosity.

    What is this, the Truman Show? Will they send this kid to regular school, or stick him in a zoo?

  24. Re:Where does extra energy go? on Mathematical Breakthrough Sets Out Rules For More Effective Teleportation · · Score: 1

    The source of the gravitational field. What else would be relevant when tallking about gravitational potential energy?

    Ah, but the stationary object is also a "source of a gravitational field" from the POV of the ground. Relativity, y'see.

  25. Re:ignorance is bliss on Turkey's Science Research Council Stops Publication of Evolution Books · · Score: 1

    The earth isn't round. It's shaped like a burrito!

    http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1982/02/06