Actually, GPS altitude data is in reality not so hot.
The triangulation calc that's carried out to work out positions doesn't extend well to produce altitude info, due to the likely positions of the satellites. To use GPS terminology, VDOP >> HDOP. Then you have the fact that GPS altitudes are actually altitudes relative to a datum Geoid, rather than the actual Sea Level height... so they themselves are an approximation.
For barometric altitudes, the big problem is the drift in the underlying barometric pressure due to weather systems as a plane flies along it's flightplan, but these are generally cancelled out by resetting the altimeter regularly to relayed ground readings when moving from one flight information region to another.
Barometric altitudes are generally more accurate by perhaps a factor of 10 than GPS altitudes (error of 30ft vs 300ft) but the drift in barometric readings due to underlying pressure changes is in itself a problem which if uncorrected can easily result in errors as large as 1000ft (30ft per mb).
Because not all infections propagate in a way that requires an increase in mail traffic.
Much intrusion is the result of loopholes in user applications or system software, and in these situations you need to be able to detect a virus signatures in a huge volume of transmitted data, or in machine storage.
Packet sniffing techniques can't help either. It's down to bad OS and application code.
True, they only allow 'online' customer service enquiries via a forms system (which I can't get to work on Konq or Firefox!)
Also, watch out if buying consumer electronics... some of their stock is grey imports and they don't always make that clear. I recently bought a Canon S70 from them and would much have preferred a genuine UK one. In fact I would have bought elsewhere for the same price if I'd known the stock was grey import.
> I doubt I'll be whacking together a dual G5 in 23 years for only 100 bucks
Or at all? Low-level homebrew like this can only easily be done on that sort of late 70s/early 80s platform. Things start to get too complicated after that.
To most modern initiates in computing, computers will only ever be the abstract theoretical desktop magic boxes or maybe the abstract theoretical machines of a text book. Their loss...
There's another issue which is very much swept under the carpet with dSLRs, namely the sensor size in comparison to the 35mm frame-size of the body means that all lenses effectively get their focal length multiplied by around 1.5. Only the middle of the 35mm frame is actually captured by the sensor.
This makes wide-angle photography very awkward on pro-sumer dSLRs. An 18mm rectilinear lens actually captures images more like a 28mm! You'd need a 12mm lens to get down to a reasonably respectable equivalent focal length of 20mm...
If you want to shoot landscapes or in-the-thick-of-it action shots, this is likely to be a significant limitation.
So, you end up either paying for a full-frame sensor dSLR (many K$s), or put up with a very limited and expensive range of wide-ish lenses, many of which won't be rectilinear anyway, and will require digital-processing to remove distortion.
Alternatively, pay double the rate for a dSLR to get the Olympus E-1 using the 4/3, which at least has a frame size that is the same as the sensor.
> Its also significant that I think this is the only completely reusable vehicle to ever go into space, as being able to do a one-week turnaround shows, having this capability has some pretty big benefits.
OK, so there's a big benefit in having a vehicle that can go into space cheaply and regularly? No... afraid not.
Spaceship one is a dead-end design which can't ever achieve orbit and re-entry.
Without orbit, it's the equivalent of an interstate bus that goes past a street on the outskirts of the town you want to get to, but doesn't stop. It just turns around and comes right back.
About as much use as a chocolate fireguard. It's a clever piece of engineering designed to win the prize on offer... but it's not a solution to any problem other than that.
You might be right that the article is implying that the batteries have a low internal resistance. However, that shouldn't be difficult to solve simply by adding a resistor to the battery itself!
I think it's more likely that the reference to limiting the rate of discharge was referring to the most notable limitation of current high current drain rechargeables (ie NiMHs)... this is that they discharge on their own without being loaded quite quickly.
That's why, having being left unattended for a fortnight, very many digital cameras will only ever take three shots before giving up the ghost.
Recharge times are crucial in the few applications they mention, but the discharge problem is the big usability issue for high capacity high current drain rechargeable technologies. Let's hope they come up with something.
Here in the UK, the meteorological office has spent millions on computing power over the past 20 years, but progressively less on actually getting raw input data. As a consequence, the accuracy of the forecasts doesn't seem to have improved that much. GIGO.
In the summer, you get better accuracy in the UK by assuming that tomorrow's weather = today's weather.
Just like I'd refuse anyone who offered short-term help to me with a view to establishing a long-term stranglehold.
$40 a ton to get that 'aid' milled into flour... and prevent it turning half of Africa into a hunting ground for Monsanto lawyers.
Get real. Do you Americans really believe that the whole world has to dance to your "our money, our technology, our bully-boy politics" tune?
Just because African nations are suffering terrible famine doesn't mean they're prepared to give up their grain export trade and put themselves in hock to the GM corporations. Jeez.
Well, according to the sailing results at the last Olympics... the UK has the best sailors.
That's in strict one design Olympic classes. Pretty much the highest level at which sailors compete on a reasonably level playing field, all sailing identical boats.
Now... who has the best designers, engineers, lawyers, most cash, most Americas cup campaign experience, most experience of the waters in which the cup will be raced, etc. etc... that's a different matter:-)
The America's cup is the oldest international sports trophy in the world. And it was originally won by a boat that was way ahead of the other competitors in terms of design.
There is nothing new in the 'go faster technology' aspect of sailing - it's as integral to racing sailboats as the ball is to a football game.
Throw the technology out, and we'd all be floating round on partially submerged logs, holding up bits of trees in a vain effort to catch the wind!
Globalisation is simply Capitalist Imperialism, leveraged by the west's economic and technological advantage. As such it's nothing new.
The terms that get used (typical US language mangling) are misleading though.
Globalism... what is that? An ism? An idea or ethic which can be subscribed to? This implies a global view or understanding, and the real agents of Globalisation could scarcely have less of an understanding or a vision more blided by self interest or cultural autism.
Globalisation... that's a process. It implies a spreading or intermingling of cultures throughout the world. Unfortunately it's a very western name for a process, and the cultural change is very much one way. Trade and communications are the transport mechanism for this cultural change and sadly the pressure which pushes the spread of this change is money (or economic power, if you are mincing your words). Economic power is concentrated in the West, specifically in US based corporations.
The behaviour of Corporations is largely unregulated in the international sphere, something which Bush and cronies are keen to protect and even extend. For western (particularly US citizens) this may mean lower gas prices, cheaper drugs, a less severe economic downturn or cheaper coffee and Nike trainers. For those on the receiving end of Globalisation the benefits are rather less obvious. Exploitative overseas employers, extortionately priced medicines for Aids and other killer diseases, eviction from homes and land or environmental destruction due to oil projects, westernisation of their culture... etc. etc.
Globalism is what we need. An wholehearted effort to appreciate the impact of western imperialist actions on second and third world countries.
Globalization is the runaway horse that we're riding, trampling all others beneath it in a headlong dash for more money. It's time for the west (and the US in particular) to wake up.
This is just so Neal Stephenson... the concept of education for kids being delivered as content into devices that have what would now seem to us to be the strangest UI's.
That's bang-on. Many eyeballs doesn't apply unless everyone uses the 'exploitative methods' that the many eyeballs reveal...
A good comparison is sailboat racing... the handicap systems there are designed to 'rate' how fast a boat is and adjust race finishing times accordingly. Just like rating a web-page for relevance, this is a computationally pretty hard problem, not an exact science. The actual underlying formulae are *very* closely guarded secrets in most cases, and what generally happens is that a new rating systems gradually becomes obsolete as boat designers learn the weaknesses of the underlying algorithm and how to exploit (design around) them.
A tricky problem, but many-eyeballs is a non-starter I believe.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, GPS altitude data is in reality not so hot.
The triangulation calc that's carried out to work out positions doesn't extend well to produce altitude info, due to the likely positions of the satellites. To use GPS terminology, VDOP >> HDOP. Then you have the fact that GPS altitudes are actually altitudes relative to a datum Geoid, rather than the actual Sea Level height... so they themselves are an approximation.
For barometric altitudes, the big problem is the drift in the underlying barometric pressure due to weather systems as a plane flies along it's flightplan, but these are generally cancelled out by resetting the altimeter regularly to relayed ground readings when moving from one flight information region to another.
Barometric altitudes are generally more accurate by perhaps a factor of 10 than GPS altitudes (error of 30ft vs 300ft) but the drift in barometric readings due to underlying pressure changes is in itself a problem which if uncorrected can easily result in errors as large as 1000ft (30ft per mb).
So both systems have their own difficulties.
Regards,
Mike
Because not all infections propagate in a way that requires an increase in mail traffic.
Much intrusion is the result of loopholes in user applications or system software, and in these situations you need to be able to detect a virus signatures in a huge volume of transmitted data, or in machine storage.
Packet sniffing techniques can't help either. It's down to bad OS and application code.
Mike
True, they only allow 'online' customer service enquiries via a forms system (which I can't get to work on Konq or Firefox!)
Also, watch out if buying consumer electronics... some of their stock is grey imports and they don't always make that clear. I recently bought a Canon S70 from them and would much have preferred a genuine UK one. In fact I would have bought elsewhere for the same price if I'd known the stock was grey import.
> I doubt I'll be whacking together a dual G5 in 23 years for only 100 bucks
Or at all? Low-level homebrew like this can only easily be done on that sort of late 70s/early 80s platform. Things start to get too complicated after that.
To most modern initiates in computing, computers will only ever be the abstract theoretical desktop magic boxes or maybe the abstract theoretical machines of a text book. Their loss...
There's another issue which is very much swept under the carpet with dSLRs, namely the sensor size in comparison to the 35mm frame-size of the body means that all lenses effectively get their focal length multiplied by around 1.5. Only the middle of the 35mm frame is actually captured by the sensor.
This makes wide-angle photography very awkward on pro-sumer dSLRs. An 18mm rectilinear lens actually captures images more like a 28mm! You'd need a 12mm lens to get down to a reasonably respectable equivalent focal length of 20mm...
If you want to shoot landscapes or in-the-thick-of-it action shots, this is likely to be a significant limitation.
So, you end up either paying for a full-frame sensor dSLR (many K$s), or put up with a very limited and expensive range of wide-ish lenses, many of which won't be rectilinear anyway, and will require digital-processing to remove distortion.
Alternatively, pay double the rate for a dSLR to get the Olympus E-1 using the 4/3, which at least has a frame size that is the same as the sensor.
> Its also significant that I think this is the only completely reusable vehicle to ever go into space, as being able to do a one-week turnaround shows, having this capability has some pretty big benefits.
OK, so there's a big benefit in having a vehicle that can go into space cheaply and regularly? No... afraid not.
Spaceship one is a dead-end design which can't ever achieve orbit and re-entry.
Without orbit, it's the equivalent of an interstate bus that goes past a street on the outskirts of the town you want to get to, but doesn't stop. It just turns around and comes right back.
About as much use as a chocolate fireguard. It's a clever piece of engineering designed to win the prize on offer... but it's not a solution to any problem other than that.
You might be right that the article is implying that the batteries have a low internal resistance. However, that shouldn't be difficult to solve simply by adding a resistor to the battery itself!
I think it's more likely that the reference to limiting the rate of discharge was referring to the most notable limitation of current high current drain rechargeables (ie NiMHs)... this is that they discharge on their own without being loaded quite quickly.
That's why, having being left unattended for a fortnight, very many digital cameras will only ever take three shots before giving up the ghost.
Recharge times are crucial in the few applications they mention, but the discharge problem is the big usability issue for high capacity high current drain rechargeable technologies. Let's hope they come up with something.
Here in the UK, the meteorological office has spent millions on computing power over the past 20 years, but progressively less on actually getting raw input data. As a consequence, the accuracy of the forecasts doesn't seem to have improved that much. GIGO.
In the summer, you get better accuracy in the UK by assuming that tomorrow's weather = today's weather.
Gorge yourself on fast food, mass media, anything cheap and 20th century. The visions will soon fade.
Just don't drive on the highway until they are well and truly gone!
Yeah, they refused it.
Just like I'd refuse anyone who offered short-term help to me with a view to establishing a long-term stranglehold.
$40 a ton to get that 'aid' milled into flour... and prevent it turning half of Africa into a hunting ground for Monsanto lawyers.
Get real. Do you Americans really believe that the whole world has to dance to your "our money, our technology, our bully-boy politics" tune?
Just because African nations are suffering terrible famine doesn't mean they're prepared to give up their grain export trade and put themselves in hock to the GM corporations. Jeez.
Mike
Well, according to the sailing results at the last Olympics... the UK has the best sailors.
:-)
That's in strict one design Olympic classes. Pretty much the highest level at which sailors compete on a reasonably level playing field, all sailing identical boats.
Now... who has the best designers, engineers, lawyers, most cash, most Americas cup campaign experience, most experience of the waters in which the cup will be raced, etc. etc... that's a different matter
Mike
Come on torpor...
The America's cup is the oldest international sports trophy in the world. And it was originally won by a boat that was way ahead of the other competitors in terms of design.
There is nothing new in the 'go faster technology' aspect of sailing - it's as integral to racing sailboats as the ball is to a football game.
Throw the technology out, and we'd all be floating round on partially submerged logs, holding up bits of trees in a vain effort to catch the wind!
Mike
Globalisation is simply Capitalist Imperialism, leveraged by the west's economic and technological advantage. As such it's nothing new.
The terms that get used (typical US language mangling) are misleading though.
Globalism... what is that? An ism? An idea or ethic which can be subscribed to? This implies a global view or understanding, and the real agents of Globalisation could scarcely have less of an understanding or a vision more blided by self interest or cultural autism.
Globalisation... that's a process. It implies a spreading or intermingling of cultures throughout the world. Unfortunately it's a very western name for a process, and the cultural change is very much one way. Trade and communications are the transport mechanism for this cultural change and sadly the pressure which pushes the spread of this change is money (or economic power, if you are mincing your words). Economic power is concentrated in the West, specifically in US based corporations.
The behaviour of Corporations is largely unregulated in the international sphere, something which Bush and cronies are keen to protect and even extend. For western (particularly US citizens) this may mean lower gas prices, cheaper drugs, a less severe economic downturn or cheaper coffee and Nike trainers. For those on the receiving end of Globalisation the benefits are rather less obvious. Exploitative overseas employers, extortionately priced medicines for Aids and other killer diseases, eviction from homes and land or environmental destruction due to oil projects, westernisation of their culture... etc. etc.
Globalism is what we need. An wholehearted effort to appreciate the impact of western imperialist actions on second and third world countries.
Globalization is the runaway horse that we're riding, trampling all others beneath it in a headlong dash for more money. It's time for the west (and the US in particular) to wake up.
BlueArcus
This is just so Neal Stephenson... the concept of education for kids being delivered as content into devices that have what would now seem to us to be the strangest UI's.
That's bang-on. Many eyeballs doesn't apply unless everyone uses the 'exploitative methods' that the many eyeballs reveal...
A good comparison is sailboat racing... the handicap systems there are designed to 'rate' how fast a boat is and adjust race finishing times accordingly. Just like rating a web-page for relevance, this is a computationally pretty hard problem, not an exact science. The actual underlying formulae are *very* closely guarded secrets in most cases, and what generally happens is that a new rating systems gradually becomes obsolete as boat designers learn the weaknesses of the underlying algorithm and how to exploit (design around) them.
A tricky problem, but many-eyeballs is a non-starter I believe.