I've been using The E-mail Sanitizer whcih is a procmail tool for catching these things. I've found it to be incredibly effective and so much easier than writing a procmailrc entry every time a new worm shows up. Since I put it on my system, not a single worm has made it to my desktop!
There's a surrealistic novel by Umberto Eco about attempts to solve the longitude problem through alchemy and strange "scientific" experiments 120 years before Harrison. It deals with the blury line between science and supersition at that time (not that it's all that clear now), and with the importance of knowing longitude for military advantage and empire building. A very strange story told through the eyes of a clueless young nobelman trapped into an insane voyage of discovery.
Back in the old days of movies the studios "owned" the actors (and, to some extent, the writers and directors) through draconian contracts that gave the studios full control over their careers. That mostly broke down in the 1950's-60's.
Now the studios can once again control their actors - this time through copyrights.
By the way, everyone keeps talking about how virtual actors still need a human voice - so they aren't really "virtual". Voice synthesis is slowly getting better all the time. If the developers had the kind of money that the studios are pumping into CG development, it would be a LOT farther along than it is. I expect that as soon as "real" actors start demanding the kind of money for voice work that they get for on-camera acting, that voice synthesis will start getting more attention.
One is trying to stuff extra information onto the screen, including branding info. When CNN is being the Anthrax channel, it's nice to read the real news in the little box at the bottom of the screen.
The other issue is copyright enforcement. Having the network ID "bug" burned into the title-safe area of the screen makes it easier for them to go after competitors (big or small, but usually small) who rebroadcast their video. And someday (maybe sooner than you think) it will make it easier to go after all you time shifting, commercial skipping, tape swapping anarchists out there!
I don't see this as competing with H-Anim, it's more of a compact alternative representation.
No. H-Anim is not about the display of emotion or other specific types of behaviors. H-Anim is a mechanism through which technologies like HumanML (or game engines, or MU worlds, or motion capture systems, or whatever) can express information on human avatars built to a standardized format.
HumanML (as I understand it) is (or will be) a standardized notation for human expression, but it will not have a specific means of display.
Why does this idea keep coming up? I'm sure Code Red is responsible in some way.
HumanML is a much higher level concept than H-Anim. Higher level technologies can easily connect with H-Anim to drive avatars. Some kind of middleware would be needed to convert HumanML tags into reasonable data than H-Anim can read. This is actually how it would work...
HumanML -> middleware -> H-Anim
H-Anim should not be burdened with the bloat of having to directly support specific higher level technologies!
Most of the HumanML people who understand H-Anim agree with this.
We just had this discussion on the H-Anim list yesterday. <yawn emotion="bored"/>
It looks like the training data needs to be similar to the target data if the results are to be visually similar. In the watercolor example the training data of the apples produces the best results on the photo of the tulips. The filtered landscape photos don't look anywhere near as good. I wonder if you could use several sets of training data (still life, landscape, portrait, etc.) to create a more general purpose filter.
I would think that approximating the unfiltered source part of the training data from a painting (like the Van Gogh example) would produce kind of twisted results from photographic data. I wonder if they've tried getting a "real" painter to mimic Van Gogh's style from a photograph and using both the photo and the painting for training data. I expect the results would be better. (Although that wasn't really the case with the pastel examples so maybe not.)
I hate to break it to you, but the only BLO hack was a social engineering one. No actual Barbies/GI Joes were actually hacked -- the entire thing was a hoax aided and abetted by a willing media who accepted the BLO video press releases without verifying the story.
It's too bad you didn't include a link to something verifying this info. A lot of fairly reputible sites contain BLO info and don't say anything about it being a fraud. These include www.syntac.net, www.everything2.com, and ®(TM)ark which claims to have funded the operation. (A quick Google search will turn up many, many more.)
Besides a couple of USENET postings, the only info I could find regarding the BLO being a myth was this article which says that the only myth is the myth of the incident being a myth.
Of course this is neither authoritative nor exhaustive and I'm sure we would all be wiser if you would reveal the source of your wisdom.
Ya buy a bunch of these things and reprogram them to say and do "interesting" things. Then you carefully repackage them, sneak them back into the store, and put them on the shelf. Imagine the fun with Grandma gives one to uncle Fred!!!
The Barbie Liberation Organization did this a while back by switching the voiceboxes of talking Barbie dolls with those of talking G.I. Joes and then putting them back into toy stores. Lot's of little boys and girls got more than they expected from Santa that year!
Is it possible to create a new "Election" topic that all this stuff could be put into? This would allow those of us who already have more than enough editorial input on the election to exclude the topic. I had considered excluding the "United States" topic, but there actually has been some useful news in it.
Of course I'm enough of a realist to know that election opinions will surface in other topics (just like Jon Katz), but it would be great if it could be mimimized.
John Brunner? I think in one of his books from the late 60's or early 70's. Maybe The Sheep Look Up?
Re:My experience with 3D Printers
on
3D Printers
·
· Score: 1
About 7 years ago I worked for a company that made models for architectural and engineering companies. The first time I saw the output of a "3D printer" it was an incredibly fragile semi-clear part for a medical device created with stereo-lithography. (We were asked to make a stronger version out of milled plastic because the S-L model couldn't be handled.) I always thought that it was a great idea and I've watched the technology every since. This summer at SIGGRAPH there were at least five companies showing "3D printers", but none of them came even close to the capabilities described in the article. The output still doesn't look like a factory made product, but the technology is much better. The speed has improved (it's still very slow), the resolution has improved a lot (you still get cross secion lines, but they're less noticable), the materials are better, and the output objects are stronger. (I still wouldn't let your three year old play with it.) The good ones are still VERY expensive. I haven't seen anything yet that could create an object with more than one color, but that would be really cool. If they can keep improving and manage to get the cost down, I could see these becoming household items.
30+ demos of Web3D content using all kinds of technology. Contestants are give between one and five minutes to show their stuff with a screaming crowd heckling them and the first five rows shooting ping-pong balls if they run long (or even just for the hell of it). Product demos got booed off the stage while an application for teaching ASL to deaf children got a standing ovation. Very cool!
And, if you were lucky enough to get a ticket, a great party with free drinks and a pyro group after the show!
Jon, In many of your writings you portray geeks as misunderstood, persecuted victims of a heartless, clueless society. Your "Hellmouth" series protrayed the Columbine shooters in this way when, by their own admission, they were just angry bullies who wanted to kill their way to fame. It's true that many geeks have a hard time in high school, but isn't a feeling of alienation the definition of adolescence? Why do you seem promote a victim mentality among geeks when it seems that most geeks are in fact happier, more mentally healthy, and have better jobs than the majority of the population?
The current issue of Computer Graphics World has an interesting article on Toy story 2 and the processes that went into making it. It seems that one of the concerns was losing the sense of continuity with the first movie because of the advances in the technology since then.
The movie was done using Renderman (as are all of Pixar's films). More info could probably be found on the comp.graphics.rendering.renderman newsgroup (although there's not much discusion of the movie going on today).
The article on Yahoo said "When the capsule was hoisted on board, bomb experts found an explosive device that went down with it. The bomb was meant to detonate if the capsule sank, making a sound that would help crews on the surface locate the spaceship. It never went off. The bomb, about the size of a soda can, was found in muck on the floor of the capsule and was heaved overboard, Newport said."
Slashdot Mirror
I've been using The E-mail Sanitizer whcih is a procmail tool for catching these things. I've found it to be incredibly effective and so much easier than writing a procmailrc entry every time a new worm shows up. Since I put it on my system, not a single worm has made it to my desktop!
There's a surrealistic novel by Umberto Eco about attempts to solve the longitude problem through alchemy and strange "scientific" experiments 120 years before Harrison. It deals with the blury line between science and supersition at that time (not that it's all that clear now), and with the importance of knowing longitude for military advantage and empire building. A very strange story told through the eyes of a clueless young nobelman trapped into an insane voyage of discovery.
Yeah, and over 80% of my 404's come from other search engines who haven't updated their databases in ages!
Back in the old days of movies the studios "owned" the actors (and, to some extent, the writers and directors) through draconian contracts that gave the studios full control over their careers. That mostly broke down in the 1950's-60's.
Now the studios can once again control their actors - this time through copyrights.
By the way, everyone keeps talking about how virtual actors still need a human voice - so they aren't really "virtual". Voice synthesis is slowly getting better all the time. If the developers had the kind of money that the studios are pumping into CG development, it would be a LOT farther along than it is. I expect that as soon as "real" actors start demanding the kind of money for voice work that they get for on-camera acting, that voice synthesis will start getting more attention.
I think there are two issues here.
One is trying to stuff extra information onto the screen, including branding info. When CNN is being the Anthrax channel, it's nice to read the real news in the little box at the bottom of the screen.
The other issue is copyright enforcement. Having the network ID "bug" burned into the title-safe area of the screen makes it easier for them to go after competitors (big or small, but usually small) who rebroadcast their video. And someday (maybe sooner than you think) it will make it easier to go after all you time shifting, commercial skipping, tape swapping anarchists out there!
I don't see this as competing with H-Anim, it's more of a compact alternative representation.
No. H-Anim is not about the display of emotion or other specific types of behaviors. H-Anim is a mechanism through which technologies like HumanML (or game engines, or MU worlds, or motion capture systems, or whatever) can express information on human avatars built to a standardized format.
HumanML (as I understand it) is (or will be) a standardized notation for human expression, but it will not have a specific means of display.
Why does this idea keep coming up? I'm sure Code Red is responsible in some way.
HumanML is a much higher level concept than H-Anim. Higher level technologies can easily connect with H-Anim to drive avatars. Some kind of middleware would be needed to convert HumanML tags into reasonable data than H-Anim can read. This is actually how it would work...
HumanML -> middleware -> H-Anim
H-Anim should not be burdened with the bloat of having to directly support specific higher level technologies!
Most of the HumanML people who understand H-Anim agree with this.
We just had this discussion on the H-Anim list yesterday. <yawn emotion="bored"/>
It looks like the training data needs to be similar to the target data if the results are to be visually similar. In the watercolor example the training data of the apples produces the best results on the photo of the tulips. The filtered landscape photos don't look anywhere near as good. I wonder if you could use several sets of training data (still life, landscape, portrait, etc.) to create a more general purpose filter.
I would think that approximating the unfiltered source part of the training data from a painting (like the Van Gogh example) would produce kind of twisted results from photographic data. I wonder if they've tried getting a "real" painter to mimic Van Gogh's style from a photograph and using both the photo and the painting for training data. I expect the results would be better. (Although that wasn't really the case with the pastel examples so maybe not.)
Maybe I'll get a chance ask at the show.
Hmmm. Palo Alto, huh?
Wake me up when they do this in East Palo Alto.
I hate to break it to you, but the only BLO hack was a social engineering one. No actual Barbies/GI Joes were actually hacked -- the entire thing was a hoax aided and abetted by a willing media who accepted the BLO video press releases without verifying the story.
It's too bad you didn't include a link to something verifying this info. A lot of fairly reputible sites contain BLO info and don't say anything about it being a fraud. These include www.syntac.net, www.everything2.com, and ®(TM)ark which claims to have funded the operation. (A quick Google search will turn up many, many more.)
Besides a couple of USENET postings, the only info I could find regarding the BLO being a myth was this article which says that the only myth is the myth of the incident being a myth.
Of course this is neither authoritative nor exhaustive and I'm sure we would all be wiser if you would reveal the source of your wisdom.
Ya buy a bunch of these things and reprogram them to say and do "interesting" things. Then you carefully repackage them, sneak them back into the store, and put them on the shelf. Imagine the fun with Grandma gives one to uncle Fred!!!
The Barbie Liberation Organization did this a while back by switching the voiceboxes of talking Barbie dolls with those of talking G.I. Joes and then putting them back into toy stores. Lot's of little boys and girls got more than they expected from Santa that year!
Is it possible to create a new "Election" topic that all this stuff could be put into? This would allow those of us who already have more than enough editorial input on the election to exclude the topic. I had considered excluding the "United States" topic, but there actually has been some useful news in it.
Of course I'm enough of a realist to know that election opinions will surface in other topics (just like Jon Katz), but it would be great if it could be mimimized.
John Brunner? I think in one of his books from the late 60's or early 70's. Maybe The Sheep Look Up?
About 7 years ago I worked for a company that made models for architectural and engineering companies. The first time I saw the output of a "3D printer" it was an incredibly fragile semi-clear part for a medical device created with stereo-lithography. (We were asked to make a stronger version out of milled plastic because the S-L model couldn't be handled.) I always thought that it was a great idea and I've watched the technology every since. This summer at SIGGRAPH there were at least five companies showing "3D printers", but none of them came even close to the capabilities described in the article. The output still doesn't look like a factory made product, but the technology is much better. The speed has improved (it's still very slow), the resolution has improved a lot (you still get cross secion lines, but they're less noticable), the materials are better, and the output objects are stronger. (I still wouldn't let your three year old play with it.) The good ones are still VERY expensive. I haven't seen anything yet that could create an object with more than one color, but that would be really cool. If they can keep improving and manage to get the cost down, I could see these becoming household items.
Does the Web3D Roundup count?
30+ demos of Web3D content using all kinds of technology. Contestants are give between one and five minutes to show their stuff with a screaming crowd heckling them and the first five rows shooting ping-pong balls if they run long (or even just for the hell of it). Product demos got booed off the stage while an application for teaching ASL to deaf children got a standing ovation. Very cool!
And, if you were lucky enough to get a ticket, a great party with free drinks and a pyro group after the show!
Tim Childs rules!!!
Jon,
In many of your writings you portray geeks as misunderstood, persecuted victims of a heartless, clueless society. Your "Hellmouth" series protrayed the Columbine shooters in this way when, by their own admission, they were just angry bullies who wanted to kill their way to fame. It's true that many geeks have a hard time in high school, but isn't a feeling of alienation the definition of adolescence? Why do you seem promote a victim mentality among geeks when it seems that most geeks are in fact happier, more mentally healthy, and have better jobs than the majority of the population?
The current issue of Computer Graphics World has an interesting article on Toy story 2 and the processes that went into making it. It seems that one of the concerns was losing the sense of continuity with the first movie because of the advances in the technology since then.
The movie was done using Renderman (as are all of Pixar's films). More info could probably be found on the comp.graphics.rendering.renderman newsgroup (although there's not much discusion of the movie going on today).
C.
The article on Yahoo said "When the capsule was hoisted on board, bomb experts found an explosive device that went down with it. The bomb was meant to detonate if the capsule sank, making a sound that would help crews on the surface locate the spaceship. It never went off. The bomb, about the size of a soda can, was found in muck on the floor of the capsule and was heaved overboard, Newport said."