My introduction to hypnosis was having three teeth pulled after a five minute session. No drugs. One tooth had three roots wrapped around bone. For a week I spit out bits of broken bone, but no pain, no bleeding at any time.
A skilled hypnotist can remove chronic pain in a single session. Even better, he/she can teach how you can do it yourself, if necessary for the rest of your life. Most people do well with hypnosis.
There seems to be a lot of superstition and mystery concerning hypnosis among the ignorant, especially in the medical profession. It can't do all miracles but it does some very well. If you haven't looked closely in to it you are doing yourself and your loved ones a disservice. You'll never know the myriad ways it can benefit you.
actually I do think, and I liked this comment: "Being without religion is just some kind of natural state for them..."
Which reminds me of a similar statement- 'a man without religion is like a fish who has lost his bicycle'. Is this a serious dilemma?
I, for one, am often the subject of well meaning concern from (mostly christian) religious people. They pray for my soul, of course, and gently try to convert me by quoting from their holy books. I would happily quote Nietzsche in return but that would create an interminable discussion which leads to no good end.
A blind person can be dependent upon his cane, a cripple on his crutches, and an emotionally confused individual on his god. But the first two don't try to encourage others to have the same dependence.
"I like to watch." - Quote from Chauncy Gardener (Peter Sellers) in the movie 'Being There'.
Many people leave the TV on all day, some all night. Some have multiple TVs on in different rooms. These people tend to be home alone and their television is a 'companion'. They like the stream of voices, especially happy voices like from game shows. They usually don't actually watch a show, almost never from beginning to end. They get sound bites, they see an occasional pleasant scene as they vacuum the floor or wash dishes or talk on the phone.
Clearly these are not/. people, but they vastly outnumber us. They are the demographic that advertisers want to reach. TV ads slip in to the distracted mind unnoticed where they can have maximum impact on the subconscious.
The future of television for the masses of dull ignorant people is exactly what we have. What we have had since B&W Jackie Gleason shows. Lots of easily accessible mindless entertainment for mindless people. Thank goodness for some new producers who offer more stimulating fare.
Apple is among the worst for this situation. I believe that almost every Apple device today is sealed and unserviceable. The disk drive in my old iMac died years ago but it is such a pain to get inside I just use an external drive. I'm a hardware/software hacker and I like things that I can mod and upgrade. Sorry, that's so last century. Unfortunately the time I spend hacking is not as productive as the time I spend using my devices as a tool to get real work done.
On the upside, every time I bring my stuff to the Apple store for repair or other problems; they fix it for free. I've never paid a cent. Not only that but I get useful information from the Apple Geniuses in the process.
The Apple devices are a consumer product, like a toaster or printer... they are mostly disposable in the first world market that Apple serves and considered to be a temporary step in product design and functionality. It is assumed that their lifespan is limited, and rightly so. If we keep our 10 year old tech and expect it to serve our current requirements we are not optimizing our experience.
It's expensive to enjoy cutting edge tech because it will quickly become obsolescent. It's not because the manufacturer made it unserviceable, it's because it's old. Give it to your parents and get the latest shit. If you are a true nerd, go ahead and fiddle with the old devices; but if you are a productive person just use what serves your needs today and tomorrow.
For thousands of years silver was the antibiotic of choice. Unfortunately nobody can patent silver, so pharmaceutical companies opted for other methods of germ fighting.
According to sciencemag.org "Silver ions perform their deadly work by punching holes in bacterial membranes and wreaking havoc once inside. They bind to essential cell components like DNA, preventing the bacteria from performing even their most basic functions."
In particular a recent article reveals that dead bacteria containing silver ions cause massive death among neighboring bacteria creating a zombie effect. This exciting news for sick people will probably fail to impress the medical establishment because silver still isn't patentable or profitable. http://news.sciencemag.org/bio...
Recent studies of silver suggest that it is not as effective as some would have you believe. Again, who pays for those studies--the medical establishment--can you believe their conclusions? They begrudgingly admit that silver is harmless when used sensibly. Corporations in the US have only one mandate under the law--provide a profit for their shareholders. Is this the correct attitude for a medical institution?
There are forces in the nuclear equation that are greater than simple megawatts. These are economic forces. Throughout the energy industry are forces and counter forces trying to determine where our energy will come from. The players include governments and lobbyists from the oil, gas, coal, nuclear, solar and wind industries. You and I don't have a lobbyist. So what will be financed is what will be profitable for the most powerful lobbyist. (Assuming 'free' market conditions.)
The utility companies have an interest too. You and I might like a microwave oven sized fusion generator in our basement or our automobile, but the utility company can't profit from that and the government can't tax our consumption. As a result, only huge fusion generators will be built permitting a continuing monopoly in the energy industry.
Cox was family owned until fairly recently. As a corporation, little has changed from the users' POV. They seem to score well at DSLReports.com and SamKnows.com. My experience has always (~20 years) been excellent--speed, tech support, reliability, billing questions, etc.
There was a substantial free speed increase several months ago, and then a substantial price increase about 2 months ago. Still better than any other ISP I'm aware of.
Not only that, but 2700 feet of pressurized fire hose probably has a significant weight even before you open the valve. If 4 feet of hose hold one gallon, that would be roughly 5,000 pounds of water (not counting the weight of the hose itself or the butterfly resting on the handle). 200 horsepower is not enough. Furthermore that bulky contraption is not nearly as sexy as the ancient jetpack that James Bond used.
Yes, what about the poor children with their sensitive hearing, and dogs, cats, chickens and cockroaches... An advertiser who elects to disrupt their lives with horrible noises should be ashamed (and sued).
Hey, don't pretend that you haven't any chickens in your house. We can hear them via the microphone installed in your thermostat, we can see them from your television and we can smell them via your smoke detector.
For those who haven't seen a modern passenger plane or most any other plane, you should know that it is not easy for the pilot to see the ground (where lasers might come from). Some reports say that 'the cabin was lit up' from a laser (because it hit the ceiling of the cabin), but it is very difficult to strike a pilot's eyes from a ground based laser unless the plane is banking sharply in your favor and the pilot is not looking at her instruments.
Additionally, the vast majority of lasers available to the public sell for much less than $10 and are similar to the lasers in your DVD player. My right eye has been blasted with far more powerful lasers in order to repair the retina. Without those lasers it would be blind.
That leaves the dreaded 'terrorists' that are everywhere these days. No doubt they have super-duper nuclear lasers to destroy planes and pilots. Will legislation prevent that happening?
"A prefixal use of uber, adverb and adjective, with the basic meaning "over, beyond."..."
Soon we can expect Uber insurance company, Uber auto manufacturing, Uber legal defense fund, Uber uniform company, and special Uber discounts at Disney World, all for Uber drivers (who may or may not be employees).
The import of that all out effort was greater than Columbus discovering the New World, greater than most anything ever done by humans outside of war. It required masses of money, masses of brilliant scientists and engineers, vast numbers of sub contractors and a government and population that gave wholehearted support.
And it was a death defying journey for crazy humans who were willing to risk it all for science. Do you see those elements in today's 'space race'?
Not sure I understand the problem. I frequently face forms that are not digitized. My handwriting is terrible so I scan the pages of the paper form and OCR them, whip out Acrobat Pro and convert them to a fillable form. Then I correct any errors and save the blank form. This blank fillable PDF form can be used by anyone on any standard computer. Any data entered via keyboard is easily legible and can even be spell checked. Similar forms are used by many government agencies and millions of businesses.
Next, I type out whatever data is requested of me, add an image of my signature, and email it to whoever requested it. Altogether this takes ~2 hours because I am not proficient with Acrobat.
I suspect that with practice I could do 10-18 forms a day depending on complexity. I could probably design and produce a form from scratch within one day. So what's the problem at Immigration Services?
So, in this political season in the US, can we believe anything that the candidates say?
Trump and Carson seem quite candid and frequently reveal their lack of presidential quality. Clinton, and the rest of the republicans, is scripted and it's impossible to know what she/they might actually think or do as a president. That leaves the outsider, Bernie Sanders, has no chance at the White House, partly because of his honest candor.
Obama campaigned on certain assurances which have failed to materialize. He seemed a 'man of the people' until he neglected to address the illegal immigrant problem and supported the trade agreement driven by the corporate elite and failed to close the inhumane prison in Cuba. There was no way to predict his actual actions from his promises as a candidate.
We want diplomacy in important sensitive discussions, but at some level we want honesty and openness from our elected officials. Can we have both?
The problem with this is that there is a universal 'gentleman's agreement' among world and corporate leaders that they never say what is actually on their mind. Public statements must be carefully scripted and reviewed by the advisers; they must be designed to obscure any element of truth and cover it with vaguely bold assertions.
Nikita Khrushchev, Mayor Daley, Donald Trump and a few others live in infamy (or ridicule) because they dared speak their minds:
"I once said, "We will bury you," and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you." - Khrushchev
"The police are not here to create disorder, they're here to preserve disorder." "We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement." - Richard J. Daley
Let's hope it is real science fiction and not just another morality play. The lessons about ethnic diversity/tolerance have exhausted themselves. The representation of Jews, Negroes and other stereotypes were poorly disguised and embarrassing. The emotional hysterics of Captain Kirk & cohorts were difficult to tolerate and the often false logic of Spock must have confused children. There is quality writing out there, let it finally appear under the name Star Trek.
Remember when you saved $75 by buying a computer online... and when it arrived it had 5 bad pixels on the screen? Yes, and then came the awkward haggling about getting a replacement and who would pay shipping, etc. If you had just gone to a reputable dealer it would have been simpler and maybe worth the $75.
When you 'kick the tires' at an auto dealer, you are inspecting the vehicle. You can't visually inspect much but the upholstery and paint, but that's important. A test ride probably won't tell you if you will like the car after many miles, but you'll listen for odd noises, sense improper shifting, feel the acceleration. You'll imagine the car stuffed with the spouse & kids, or the fishing gear or the surfboard. You will mentally compare this car with several others you have test driven. What is this preview worth to you?
from Wikipedia "OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines (defined as "a tree, where each node contains a set of named attributes with string values" . . . "The OPML specification defines an outline as a hierarchical, ordered list of arbitrary elements. The specification is fairly open which makes it suitable for many types of list data."
I use two outliner programs: OmniOutliner and Notebook for Mac (proprietary). I've used outliners since the original More program from back in the dark ages (and still have notes from there and from my Psion 3a). The important thing about OPML is that when your software is no longer supported, you can move your data to another compatible platform.
Surely there is an open outliner using OPML. If not, this is a great opportunity for some developer.
There's no need for high tech detectors. The best method is to throw in some bait to test the waters. I suggest lawyers, politicians or music industry executives.
Every government agency has to do something now and then to justify its existence. The Government Accounting Office ( www.gao.gov/ ) did a useful thing here. They have often done worthwhile work in scrutinizing other government agencies for waste, negligence, corruption and incompetence. Without having an agency to scrutinize the GAO it's difficult to know if we are getting bang for the buck.
But I think some people here are thinking of government agencies in general, like the ones reported on here and the regulators that supervise everything. Yes, lots of them stink--and here's the reason:
Most regulators including the tax authority, the banking regulators, insurance regulators, food inspection authorities, energy regulators etc... most regulators are corrupt and actually serve and protect the industry that they 'regulate' in return for certain benefits. When they do need to justify their existence, their wrath is pointed at some little guy, some outsider, someone who can't afford a team of powerful attorneys. This is so common around the globe that it is assumed by many people. How many bankers suffered jail or any personal inconvenience because of the corruption that devastated the world for nearly a decade?
So yes, most regulators produce nothing but theater while big crimes go unnoticed. Big farming corporations get government handouts originally intended for small family farms. Big oil companies get billions in tax benefits and more. Proposed bank reforms fade quietly along with the public memory. Meanwhile pot smokers, welfare cheats and homeless people are persecuted and prosecuted while the fat cats get fatter... But the GAO really has done some good work.
You can get some insight into your own performance by joining Samknows- a worldwide survey of internet performance from various ISPs ( https://www.samknows.com/ ). You'll receive a monthly report with data & charts that shows your up/down speeds and averages for every day that month as well as latency, packet loss, and disentropy for your setup. Actually I don't think disentropy has been discovered until this moment.
Additionally as a subscriber, you can see the big picture data at their web site as discussed in TFA. Joining is free and you get a 'whitebox' to connect to your system which reports to Samknows in UK. You know it's safe because it's white and they promise not to spy on you.
The habitat is the second and lesser of two projects for humans to live on mars. A balanced approach is to adapt mars for human occupation, and also adapt humans to life on mars.
The first, most important, most time consuming project is to modify some humans so they have the best chance to survive. Eager volunteer space cadets may not be sufficient for this daunting adventure.
The obvious choice is to begin with the unborn. Ancestry will be important- people of the arctic circle who are adapted to cold, relative isolation and weak sunlight might be a good choice. Then there will be some genetic adjustments, funded by the department of defense, that we cannot discuss publicly for a few generations. The fetus/infant/child will have physical and psychological preparation throughout its development. When existing science has done all it can for this specimen, we shoot him/her off to mars.
Is existing science ready for this? Are social, political and religious leaders willing to accept this requirement? It's one thing to fantasize about gee whiz hardware and tech, it's quite another to properly prepare people to live a life we can barely imagine.
(I suspect that none of this will happen in our lifetimes. I sense that mars is a distraction the government wants us to think about when they are quietly doing evil things.)
Opening line from UCF: "Human detection in dense crowds is an important problem..."
I have never found difficulty detecting humans in a crowd. OK, nit picking, but I have a point.
Skimming TFA I sense that much mathematical rigor went into this work, which is why I love science. But the opening sentence , above, is a dismal start in presenting the work. There is more convoluted verbiage following that, all of which suggests an eager young person hoping to impress and earn a Masters degree.
Communication is essential. The best science, the best software, the best iDevice is useless unless people can understand it. DaVinci communicated via drawings remarkably well. Words can make understanding easy or painful, but that's what we are mostly required to use.
I was a technical communicator. My job was to make concepts understandable to humans unfamiliar with them. I found it a pleasant challenge. But as I look around I see brilliant work being done in science and software and either no effort or ineffective effort to describe what it does/means. OSS is guilty, of course.
Often the team member responsible for communicating is left out of the process. Sometimes they are considered to be a lower life form and shunned. But mostly that person does not exist. Consider that in your next project so that you don't look like this Masters candidate when you proudly present the results of your work.
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My introduction to hypnosis was having three teeth pulled after a five minute session. No drugs. One tooth had three roots wrapped around bone. For a week I spit out bits of broken bone, but no pain, no bleeding at any time.
A skilled hypnotist can remove chronic pain in a single session. Even better, he/she can teach how you can do it yourself, if necessary for the rest of your life. Most people do well with hypnosis.
There seems to be a lot of superstition and mystery concerning hypnosis among the ignorant, especially in the medical profession. It can't do all miracles but it does some very well. If you haven't looked closely in to it you are doing yourself and your loved ones a disservice. You'll never know the myriad ways it can benefit you.
actually I do think, and I liked this comment:
"Being without religion is just some kind of natural state for them..."
Which reminds me of a similar statement- 'a man without religion is like a fish who has lost his bicycle'. Is this a serious dilemma?
I, for one, am often the subject of well meaning concern from (mostly christian) religious people. They pray for my soul, of course, and gently try to convert me by quoting from their holy books. I would happily quote Nietzsche in return but that would create an interminable discussion which leads to no good end.
A blind person can be dependent upon his cane, a cripple on his crutches, and an emotionally confused individual on his god. But the first two don't try to encourage others to have the same dependence.
"I like to watch." - Quote from Chauncy Gardener (Peter Sellers) in the movie 'Being There'.
Many people leave the TV on all day, some all night. Some have multiple TVs on in different rooms. These people tend to be home alone and their television is a 'companion'. They like the stream of voices, especially happy voices like from game shows. They usually don't actually watch a show, almost never from beginning to end. They get sound bites, they see an occasional pleasant scene as they vacuum the floor or wash dishes or talk on the phone.
Clearly these are not /. people, but they vastly outnumber us. They are the demographic that advertisers want to reach. TV ads slip in to the distracted mind unnoticed where they can have maximum impact on the subconscious.
The future of television for the masses of dull ignorant people is exactly what we have. What we have had since B&W Jackie Gleason shows. Lots of easily accessible mindless entertainment for mindless people. Thank goodness for some new producers who offer more stimulating fare.
Apple is among the worst for this situation. I believe that almost every Apple device today is sealed and unserviceable. The disk drive in my old iMac died years ago but it is such a pain to get inside I just use an external drive. I'm a hardware/software hacker and I like things that I can mod and upgrade. Sorry, that's so last century. Unfortunately the time I spend hacking is not as productive as the time I spend using my devices as a tool to get real work done.
On the upside, every time I bring my stuff to the Apple store for repair or other problems; they fix it for free. I've never paid a cent. Not only that but I get useful information from the Apple Geniuses in the process.
The Apple devices are a consumer product, like a toaster or printer ... they are mostly disposable in the first world market that Apple serves and considered to be a temporary step in product design and functionality. It is assumed that their lifespan is limited, and rightly so. If we keep our 10 year old tech and expect it to serve our current requirements we are not optimizing our experience.
It's expensive to enjoy cutting edge tech because it will quickly become obsolescent. It's not because the manufacturer made it unserviceable, it's because it's old. Give it to your parents and get the latest shit. If you are a true nerd, go ahead and fiddle with the old devices; but if you are a productive person just use what serves your needs today and tomorrow.
For thousands of years silver was the antibiotic of choice. Unfortunately nobody can patent silver, so pharmaceutical companies opted for other methods of germ fighting.
According to sciencemag.org "Silver ions perform their deadly work by punching holes in bacterial membranes and wreaking havoc once inside. They bind to essential cell components like DNA, preventing the bacteria from performing even their most basic functions."
In particular a recent article reveals that dead bacteria containing silver ions cause massive death among neighboring bacteria creating a zombie effect. This exciting news for sick people will probably fail to impress the medical establishment because silver still isn't patentable or profitable. http://news.sciencemag.org/bio...
Recent studies of silver suggest that it is not as effective as some would have you believe. Again, who pays for those studies--the medical establishment--can you believe their conclusions? They begrudgingly admit that silver is harmless when used sensibly. Corporations in the US have only one mandate under the law--provide a profit for their shareholders. Is this the correct attitude for a medical institution?
There are forces in the nuclear equation that are greater than simple megawatts. These are economic forces. Throughout the energy industry are forces and counter forces trying to determine where our energy will come from. The players include governments and lobbyists from the oil, gas, coal, nuclear, solar and wind industries. You and I don't have a lobbyist. So what will be financed is what will be profitable for the most powerful lobbyist. (Assuming 'free' market conditions.)
The utility companies have an interest too. You and I might like a microwave oven sized fusion generator in our basement or our automobile, but the utility company can't profit from that and the government can't tax our consumption. As a result, only huge fusion generators will be built permitting a continuing monopoly in the energy industry.
If you have a choice, consider Cox.
Cox was family owned until fairly recently. As a corporation, little has changed from the users' POV. They seem to score well at DSLReports.com and SamKnows.com. My experience has always (~20 years) been excellent--speed, tech support, reliability, billing questions, etc.
There was a substantial free speed increase several months ago, and then a substantial price increase about 2 months ago. Still better than any other ISP I'm aware of.
Not only that, but 2700 feet of pressurized fire hose probably has a significant weight even before you open the valve. If 4 feet of hose hold one gallon, that would be roughly 5,000 pounds of water (not counting the weight of the hose itself or the butterfly resting on the handle). 200 horsepower is not enough. Furthermore that bulky contraption is not nearly as sexy as the ancient jetpack that James Bond used.
Yes, what about the poor children with their sensitive hearing, and dogs, cats, chickens and cockroaches ... An advertiser who elects to disrupt their lives with horrible noises should be ashamed (and sued).
Hey, don't pretend that you haven't any chickens in your house. We can hear them via the microphone installed in your thermostat, we can see them from your television and we can smell them via your smoke detector.
For those who haven't seen a modern passenger plane or most any other plane, you should know that it is not easy for the pilot to see the ground (where lasers might come from). Some reports say that 'the cabin was lit up' from a laser (because it hit the ceiling of the cabin), but it is very difficult to strike a pilot's eyes from a ground based laser unless the plane is banking sharply in your favor and the pilot is not looking at her instruments.
Additionally, the vast majority of lasers available to the public sell for much less than $10 and are similar to the lasers in your DVD player. My right eye has been blasted with far more powerful lasers in order to repair the retina. Without those lasers it would be blind.
That leaves the dreaded 'terrorists' that are everywhere these days. No doubt they have super-duper nuclear lasers to destroy planes and pilots. Will legislation prevent that happening?
Where are the statistics about the blinded pilots and crashed planes? Without these facts there is no way to tell if there is a problem.
"A prefixal use of uber, adverb and adjective, with the basic meaning "over, beyond."..."
Soon we can expect Uber insurance company, Uber auto manufacturing, Uber legal defense fund, Uber uniform company, and special Uber discounts at Disney World, all for Uber drivers (who may or may not be employees).
"space race, such as occurred in the 1960s"
The import of that all out effort was greater than Columbus discovering the New World, greater than most anything ever done by humans outside of war. It required masses of money, masses of brilliant scientists and engineers, vast numbers of sub contractors and a government and population that gave wholehearted support.
And it was a death defying journey for crazy humans who were willing to risk it all for science. Do you see those elements in today's 'space race'?
No doubt they can patent anything interesting that they find in your blood.
You won't be the first whose DNA made millions for other people.
Not sure I understand the problem. I frequently face forms that are not digitized. My handwriting is terrible so I scan the pages of the paper form and OCR them, whip out Acrobat Pro and convert them to a fillable form. Then I correct any errors and save the blank form. This blank fillable PDF form can be used by anyone on any standard computer. Any data entered via keyboard is easily legible and can even be spell checked. Similar forms are used by many government agencies and millions of businesses.
Next, I type out whatever data is requested of me, add an image of my signature, and email it to whoever requested it. Altogether this takes ~2 hours because I am not proficient with Acrobat.
I suspect that with practice I could do 10-18 forms a day depending on complexity.
I could probably design and produce a form from scratch within one day.
So what's the problem at Immigration Services?
So, in this political season in the US, can we believe anything that the candidates say?
Trump and Carson seem quite candid and frequently reveal their lack of presidential quality. Clinton, and the rest of the republicans, is scripted and it's impossible to know what she/they might actually think or do as a president. That leaves the outsider, Bernie Sanders, has no chance at the White House, partly because of his honest candor.
Obama campaigned on certain assurances which have failed to materialize. He seemed a 'man of the people' until he neglected to address the illegal immigrant problem and supported the trade agreement driven by the corporate elite and failed to close the inhumane prison in Cuba. There was no way to predict his actual actions from his promises as a candidate.
We want diplomacy in important sensitive discussions, but at some level we want honesty and openness from our elected officials. Can we have both?
The problem with this is that there is a universal 'gentleman's agreement' among world and corporate leaders that they never say what is actually on their mind. Public statements must be carefully scripted and reviewed by the advisers; they must be designed to obscure any element of truth and cover it with vaguely bold assertions.
Nikita Khrushchev, Mayor Daley, Donald Trump and a few others live in infamy (or ridicule) because they dared speak their minds:
"I once said, "We will bury you," and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you." - Khrushchev
"The police are not here to create disorder, they're here to preserve disorder." "We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement." - Richard J. Daley
Let's hope it is real science fiction and not just another morality play. The lessons about ethnic diversity/tolerance have exhausted themselves. The representation of Jews, Negroes and other stereotypes were poorly disguised and embarrassing. The emotional hysterics of Captain Kirk & cohorts were difficult to tolerate and the often false logic of Spock must have confused children. There is quality writing out there, let it finally appear under the name Star Trek.
Remember when you saved $75 by buying a computer online ... and when it arrived it had 5 bad pixels on the screen? Yes, and then came the awkward haggling about getting a replacement and who would pay shipping, etc. If you had just gone to a reputable dealer it would have been simpler and maybe worth the $75.
When you 'kick the tires' at an auto dealer, you are inspecting the vehicle. You can't visually inspect much but the upholstery and paint, but that's important. A test ride probably won't tell you if you will like the car after many miles, but you'll listen for odd noises, sense improper shifting, feel the acceleration. You'll imagine the car stuffed with the spouse & kids, or the fishing gear or the surfboard. You will mentally compare this car with several others you have test driven. What is this preview worth to you?
from Wikipedia
"OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines (defined as "a tree, where each node contains a set of named attributes with string values" . . .
"The OPML specification defines an outline as a hierarchical, ordered list of arbitrary elements. The specification is fairly open which makes it suitable for many types of list data."
I use two outliner programs: OmniOutliner and Notebook for Mac (proprietary). I've used outliners since the original More program from back in the dark ages (and still have notes from there and from my Psion 3a). The important thing about OPML is that when your software is no longer supported, you can move your data to another compatible platform.
Surely there is an open outliner using OPML. If not, this is a great opportunity for some developer.
There's no need for high tech detectors. The best method is to throw in some bait to test the waters. I suggest lawyers, politicians or music industry executives.
Every government agency has to do something now and then to justify its existence. The Government Accounting Office ( www.gao.gov/ ) did a useful thing here. They have often done worthwhile work in scrutinizing other government agencies for waste, negligence, corruption and incompetence. Without having an agency to scrutinize the GAO it's difficult to know if we are getting bang for the buck.
But I think some people here are thinking of government agencies in general, like the ones reported on here and the regulators that supervise everything. Yes, lots of them stink--and here's the reason:
Most regulators including the tax authority, the banking regulators, insurance regulators, food inspection authorities, energy regulators etc ... most regulators are corrupt and actually serve and protect the industry that they 'regulate' in return for certain benefits. When they do need to justify their existence, their wrath is pointed at some little guy, some outsider, someone who can't afford a team of powerful attorneys. This is so common around the globe that it is assumed by many people. How many bankers suffered jail or any personal inconvenience because of the corruption that devastated the world for nearly a decade?
So yes, most regulators produce nothing but theater while big crimes go unnoticed. Big farming corporations get government handouts originally intended for small family farms. Big oil companies get billions in tax benefits and more. Proposed bank reforms fade quietly along with the public memory. Meanwhile pot smokers, welfare cheats and homeless people are persecuted and prosecuted while the fat cats get fatter ... But the GAO really has done some good work.
You can get some insight into your own performance by joining Samknows- a worldwide survey of internet performance from various ISPs ( https://www.samknows.com/ ). You'll receive a monthly report with data & charts that shows your up/down speeds and averages for every day that month as well as latency, packet loss, and disentropy for your setup. Actually I don't think disentropy has been discovered until this moment.
Additionally as a subscriber, you can see the big picture data at their web site as discussed in TFA. Joining is free and you get a 'whitebox' to connect to your system which reports to Samknows in UK. You know it's safe because it's white and they promise not to spy on you.
The habitat is the second and lesser of two projects for humans to live on mars. A balanced approach is to adapt mars for human occupation, and also adapt humans to life on mars.
The first, most important, most time consuming project is to modify some humans so they have the best chance to survive. Eager volunteer space cadets may not be sufficient for this daunting adventure.
The obvious choice is to begin with the unborn. Ancestry will be important- people of the arctic circle who are adapted to cold, relative isolation and weak sunlight might be a good choice. Then there will be some genetic adjustments, funded by the department of defense, that we cannot discuss publicly for a few generations. The fetus/infant/child will have physical and psychological preparation throughout its development. When existing science has done all it can for this specimen, we shoot him/her off to mars.
Is existing science ready for this? Are social, political and religious leaders willing to accept this requirement? It's one thing to fantasize about gee whiz hardware and tech, it's quite another to properly prepare people to live a life we can barely imagine.
(I suspect that none of this will happen in our lifetimes. I sense that mars is a distraction the government wants us to think about when they are quietly doing evil things.)
Opening line from UCF: "Human detection in dense crowds is an important problem..."
I have never found difficulty detecting humans in a crowd. OK, nit picking, but I have a point.
Skimming TFA I sense that much mathematical rigor went into this work, which is why I love science. But the opening sentence , above, is a dismal start in presenting the work. There is more convoluted verbiage following that, all of which suggests an eager young person hoping to impress and earn a Masters degree.
Communication is essential. The best science, the best software, the best iDevice is useless unless people can understand it. DaVinci communicated via drawings remarkably well. Words can make understanding easy or painful, but that's what we are mostly required to use.
I was a technical communicator. My job was to make concepts understandable to humans unfamiliar with them. I found it a pleasant challenge. But as I look around I see brilliant work being done in science and software and either no effort or ineffective effort to describe what it does/means. OSS is guilty, of course.
Often the team member responsible for communicating is left out of the process. Sometimes they are considered to be a lower life form and shunned. But mostly that person does not exist. Consider that in your next project so that you don't look like this Masters candidate when you proudly present the results of your work.