This Slashdot thread is yet another example of how Mac-centric the "new" Slashdot has become.
My roommate bought a Windows-based USB Mpeg-1 TV tuner device back in 1999 for about $50 retail.
I recently purchased a Pinnacle PCI-based capture card for about $20 and use free software to do all of my recording.
So I completely fail to see why a similar device for Apple, arriving more than 3 years late, is this newsworthy! There is another forum much more suited to such banal news.
I'm referencing here the downing of the Iranian Airbus commercial airliner by the USS Vincennes (Arleigh Burke AEGIS guided missile cruiser) that killed about 300 people in 1988.
Here's a transcript of the Newsweek Story that goes into detail about the entire incident. It's a little biased against the U.S. Navy because of their reluctance to publicize their screw-up, but according to what I learned studying the incident in my Navy ROTC classes, it's fairly accurate.
USS Vincennes Incident was NOT software related
on
Debug your Code, or Else!
·
· Score: 3, Informative
There were many things that went wrong during the incident, but one of the FEW things that worked correctly was the AEGIS weapons system on board the guided missile cruiser. The error lay in the crew's mistaking the range information reported on the radar screen with altitude information. As a result, the CO thought that the incoming contact was flying straight towards his ship and decreasing in altitude (preparing to attack).
Blaming a "cryptic display" is hardly a software bug if anyone is familiar with radar screens. That's why we train people to read them!
Nasa's description of that particular CO measurement states that it was taken over the course of an entire year. That seems to me to suggest that forest fires are consistently dominating the CO (and CO2) production around the globe.
Forest fires occur naturally all over the world. Lightning strikes are the primary culprit. The reason that recent forest fires have been so destructive is that our firefighters have done such a GOOD job over the past half a century that forest coverage is at something like a 90 year high in the United States (I don't have time to find the reference to that statistic, but it's been quoted elsewhere).
When the fires DO get out of control, they burn and burn and burn. I hate to say it, but our attempts to SAVE FORESTS might actually be creating these huge fires that produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide... Scary...
As for the Ozone vs. Global Warming issue, the fundamental mechanism by which global warming supposedly works traps ANY form of latent energy from the sun, but infrared radiation in particular. If you remember, the biggest band of radiation blocked by the Ozone layer was the ultraviolet band. But the UV rays that are blocked still dissipate energy into the surrounding environment (in the form of infrared, I believe), even if the ozone layer were completely intact. In other words, according to the theory at least, Global Warming should occur regardless of the presence of an ozone layer.
Actually, the origin of carbon monoxide (and hence carbon dioxide) don't make me skeptical of global warming (the sketchy data does it for me)..
No, the fact that the vast majority of CO2 emissions over an entire YEAR seem to be coming from largely unpopulated regions in South America and Africa makes me skeptical of politicians who try to tell me that my '94 Chevrolet is responsible for the 0.5 degree Fahrenheit rise in the temperature in some place in Siberia.
I don't doubt that the average surface temperature in that town in Siberia may well have risen 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 20 years. But blaming the US and other industrialized nations for it without proper evidence is stupid and counterproductive. Not to mention the fact that it could cost billions of dollars in the US alone if tight CO2 restrictions were ever enforced, when these restrictions are likely completely unnecessary!
The previous comment is completely off-topic, and should be moderated accordingly.
Let's clear this up once and for all: despite what you may have learned in school, where these environmental issues are comingled and bandied about interchangeably for political purposes, ozone depletion and global warming are entirely different animals. It's a shame that they are ever confused. It shows that people aren't really interested in the facts: each side wishes to blame the other as either "not caring" or "scaremongering."
Ozone depletion has been shown to be a result of chloroflurocarbons escaping (although they are heavier than air) into the upper atmosphere and breaking apart ozone molecules. Ozone depletion was much more universally accepted in the scientific community than the "other" environmental media darling, global warming.
Global warming, contrary to just about everything you see on the news, is NOT universally accepted in the scientific community. In fact, most of the data on which the alarming reports are based are self-contradictory (the data, not the reports). Some temperature data reporting stations show alarming increases, others don't.
Here's a great example of data that you WON'T see reported on the news, although when I first saw it, I thought it was really interesting:
Global Carbon Monoxide Measurements
At first you might just think, what does carbon monoxide have to do with Global Warming? LOTS! In any combustion process (like cars making carbon dioxide gas, one of the so-called "greenhouse gases") carbon monoxide is a byproduct. The highest concentrations of carbon monoxide in the environment show where the worst MAN-MADE greenhouse gas offenders are.
Well, as it turns out, naturally caused FOREST FIRES in South America and Africa completely DWARF the "industrialized" world's CO production! But don't take MY word for it: look at the satellite data yourselves in the above link.
I highly encourage all of you to be SKEPTICAL of everything you've ever been taught or read, without finding and looking at the data yourselves.
The nature of the proposals wasn't explicitly stated in the question posted, but our University has a similar proposal-based system through the "Center for Instructional Technology." I am on a steering committee that deals with the proposals and money expenditures.
The proposals are to be entertained from faculty, students, and teaching assistants; they are looking for new and innovative ways to use technology to promote learning. The budgets in question are usually a few thousand dollars per proposal.
For instance, say a biology professor has an idea to use a wireless network and bunch of PDAs to use out "in the field". Each plant in a greenhouse or out in a field has an identifier next to it; as students walk around the field they can learn about any plant they find interesting by using their PDA to immediately research it over the wireless network, either querying a remote database or accessing web pages.
Just so that we don't start using the wrong word elsewhere, the correct word is "WITHERING attack" not "WHITHERING attack". There is no such word as "whithering." It is a bastardized version of "whither", as in "Whither are we wondering?" To "wither" means "to cause to shrivel or fade" which is surely the implied meaning here. Just FYI.
Obviously you are a keen intellectual, one who has closely studied the merits of objectivist philosophy. Had you been otherwise, you would not have realized that the end result of self-interest in our society creates the interdependence you described, and that by denying said self-interest and attempting to thwart supply and demand one upsets the delicate balance of interdependence, resulting in shortages, famine, and human suffering. But as a highly accomplished scholar, you already knew all of the above. Oh, and "bravo" on your use of euphemism in reference to bodily fluids and parts. Your subtle indicative style is a hallmark of good taste.
In reality: Only the Neanderthals and the communists (supposedly) lived under "communal, selfless" principles to which you claim all human beings should adhere. They didn't last for a good reason. See, the key term you are skirting but never really mention is interdependence. Interdependence represents the epitome of human evolution; human beings working in concert and by their work improving the lot of everyone involved. Everyone (except for those who do not believe in progress, and they do exist) agrees with this principle.
But what you (and many others) don't understand is that a system of dependents on the one hand and providers on the other is NOT a system of interdependence. In order to become interdependent, you must FIRST be independent. Becoming independent is NOT impossible, as you and others would like everyone to believe; the existence of independence would destroy your theory that EVERYONE is dependent on EVERYONE else(and ergo, we are all each others' brothers). Believing that you are dependent on others is the first step towards stagnation and deprivation of the human mind. Once you realize that only YOU are the purveyor of your own destiny, and that YOU are capable of breaking your dependence and weaning yourself from others' hands, THEN you can become independent for the first time and move onwards towards the next step.
When multiple independent people get together, they enact mutually beneficial agreements (read: TRADE) that are fundamentally self-interested but, due to the nature of human ingenuity, good for BOTH parties at the same time. This is interdependence. Do you see that since dependents have nothing to offer in trade that society as a whole benefits nothing from their existence? Dependence should be shunned from a healthy society as an Absolute Evil.
This is not only the principle of Objectivism. It's also the same idea found in Stephen Covey's book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People."
Sure, everyone starts out as a dependent. But when they GROW UP they outgrow their dependence. And at their peak, they even become interdependent. But you can't jump straight from dependence to interdependence, because in interdependence EACH PARTY MUST HAVE SOMETHING OF EQUAL VALUE TO OFFER IN TRADE. Only independents can produce something worth trading. And, in the case of elderly family members, that includes love.
I must conclude that since you obviously have not conceived of the realm past that of dependence on others, that it is YOU who have not fully grown up. But resorting to diminutive insult is no form of rational argument. I wonder whether you realize it?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm apologize, but the announcement of a standard peripheral is simply not very newsworthy; that is the ONLY point that I was trying to make.
I'm so sorry if I offended your high opinion of this forum.
This Slashdot thread is yet another example of how Mac-centric the "new" Slashdot has become.
My roommate bought a Windows-based USB Mpeg-1 TV tuner device back in 1999 for about $50 retail.
I recently purchased a Pinnacle PCI-based capture card for about $20 and use free software to do all of my recording.
So I completely fail to see why a similar device for Apple, arriving more than 3 years late, is this newsworthy! There is another forum much more suited to such banal news.
I'm referencing here the downing of the Iranian Airbus commercial airliner by the USS Vincennes (Arleigh Burke AEGIS guided missile cruiser) that killed about 300 people in 1988.
Here's a transcript of the
Newsweek Story that goes into detail about the entire incident. It's a little biased against the U.S. Navy because of their reluctance to publicize their screw-up, but according to what I learned studying the incident in my Navy ROTC classes, it's fairly accurate.
There were many things that went wrong during the incident, but one of the FEW things that worked correctly was the AEGIS weapons system on board the guided missile cruiser. The error lay in the crew's mistaking the range information reported on the radar screen with altitude information. As a result, the CO thought that the incoming contact was flying straight towards his ship and decreasing in altitude (preparing to attack).
Blaming a "cryptic display" is hardly a software bug if anyone is familiar with radar screens. That's why we train people to read them!
Nasa's description of that particular CO measurement states that it was taken over the course of an entire year. That seems to me to suggest that forest fires are consistently dominating the CO (and CO2) production around the globe.
Forest fires occur naturally all over the world. Lightning strikes are the primary culprit. The reason that recent forest fires have been so destructive is that our firefighters have done such a GOOD job over the past half a century that forest coverage is at something like a 90 year high in the United States (I don't have time to find the reference to that statistic, but it's been quoted elsewhere).
When the fires DO get out of control, they burn and burn and burn. I hate to say it, but our attempts to SAVE FORESTS might actually be creating these huge fires that produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide... Scary...
As for the Ozone vs. Global Warming issue, the fundamental mechanism by which global warming supposedly works traps ANY form of latent energy from the sun, but infrared radiation in particular. If you remember, the biggest band of radiation blocked by the Ozone layer was the ultraviolet band. But the UV rays that are blocked still dissipate energy into the surrounding environment (in the form of infrared, I believe), even if the ozone layer were completely intact. In other words, according to the theory at least, Global Warming should occur regardless of the presence of an ozone layer.
Actually, the origin of carbon monoxide (and hence carbon dioxide) don't make me skeptical of global warming (the sketchy data does it for me)..
No, the fact that the vast majority of CO2 emissions over an entire YEAR seem to be coming from largely unpopulated regions in South America and Africa makes me skeptical of politicians who try to tell me that my '94 Chevrolet is responsible for the 0.5 degree Fahrenheit rise in the temperature in some place in Siberia.
I don't doubt that the average surface temperature in that town in Siberia may well have risen 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 20 years. But blaming the US and other industrialized nations for it without proper evidence is stupid and counterproductive. Not to mention the fact that it could cost billions of dollars in the US alone if tight CO2 restrictions were ever enforced, when these restrictions are likely completely unnecessary!
The previous comment is completely off-topic, and should be moderated accordingly.
Let's clear this up once and for all: despite what you may have learned in school, where these environmental issues are comingled and bandied about interchangeably for political purposes, ozone depletion and global warming are entirely different animals. It's a shame that they are ever confused. It shows that people aren't really interested in the facts: each side wishes to blame the other as either "not caring" or "scaremongering."
Ozone depletion has been shown to be a result of chloroflurocarbons escaping (although they are heavier than air) into the upper atmosphere and breaking apart ozone molecules. Ozone depletion was much more universally accepted in the scientific community than the "other" environmental media darling, global warming.
Global warming, contrary to just about everything you see on the news, is NOT universally accepted in the scientific community. In fact, most of the data on which the alarming reports are based are self-contradictory (the data, not the reports). Some temperature data reporting stations show alarming increases, others don't.
Here's a great example of data that you WON'T see reported on the news, although when I first saw it, I thought it was really interesting:
Global Carbon Monoxide Measurements
At first you might just think, what does carbon monoxide have to do with Global Warming? LOTS! In any combustion process (like cars making carbon dioxide gas, one of the so-called "greenhouse gases") carbon monoxide is a byproduct. The highest concentrations of carbon monoxide in the environment show where the worst MAN-MADE greenhouse gas offenders are.
Well, as it turns out, naturally caused FOREST FIRES in South America and Africa completely DWARF the "industrialized" world's CO production! But don't take MY word for it: look at the satellite data yourselves in the above link.
I highly encourage all of you to be SKEPTICAL of everything you've ever been taught or read, without finding and looking at the data yourselves.
The nature of the proposals wasn't explicitly stated in the question posted, but our University has a similar proposal-based system through the "Center for Instructional Technology." I am on a steering committee that deals with the proposals and money expenditures.
The proposals are to be entertained from faculty, students, and teaching assistants; they are looking for new and innovative ways to use technology to promote learning. The budgets in question are usually a few thousand dollars per proposal.
For instance, say a biology professor has an idea to use a wireless network and bunch of PDAs to use out "in the field". Each plant in a greenhouse or out in a field has an identifier next to it; as students walk around the field they can learn about any plant they find interesting by using their PDA to immediately research it over the wireless network, either querying a remote database or accessing web pages.
Just so that we don't start using the wrong word elsewhere, the correct word is "WITHERING attack" not "WHITHERING attack". There is no such word as "whithering." It is a bastardized version of "whither", as in "Whither are we wondering?" To "wither" means "to cause to shrivel or fade" which is surely the implied meaning here. Just FYI.
Obviously you are a keen intellectual, one who has closely studied the merits of objectivist philosophy. Had you been otherwise, you would not have realized that the end result of self-interest in our society creates the interdependence you described, and that by denying said self-interest and attempting to thwart supply and demand one upsets the delicate balance of interdependence, resulting in shortages, famine, and human suffering. But as a highly accomplished scholar, you already knew all of the above. Oh, and "bravo" on your use of euphemism in reference to bodily fluids and parts. Your subtle indicative style is a hallmark of good taste. In reality: Only the Neanderthals and the communists (supposedly) lived under "communal, selfless" principles to which you claim all human beings should adhere. They didn't last for a good reason. See, the key term you are skirting but never really mention is interdependence. Interdependence represents the epitome of human evolution; human beings working in concert and by their work improving the lot of everyone involved. Everyone (except for those who do not believe in progress, and they do exist) agrees with this principle. But what you (and many others) don't understand is that a system of dependents on the one hand and providers on the other is NOT a system of interdependence. In order to become interdependent, you must FIRST be independent. Becoming independent is NOT impossible, as you and others would like everyone to believe; the existence of independence would destroy your theory that EVERYONE is dependent on EVERYONE else(and ergo, we are all each others' brothers). Believing that you are dependent on others is the first step towards stagnation and deprivation of the human mind. Once you realize that only YOU are the purveyor of your own destiny, and that YOU are capable of breaking your dependence and weaning yourself from others' hands, THEN you can become independent for the first time and move onwards towards the next step. When multiple independent people get together, they enact mutually beneficial agreements (read: TRADE) that are fundamentally self-interested but, due to the nature of human ingenuity, good for BOTH parties at the same time. This is interdependence. Do you see that since dependents have nothing to offer in trade that society as a whole benefits nothing from their existence? Dependence should be shunned from a healthy society as an Absolute Evil. This is not only the principle of Objectivism. It's also the same idea found in Stephen Covey's book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." Sure, everyone starts out as a dependent. But when they GROW UP they outgrow their dependence. And at their peak, they even become interdependent. But you can't jump straight from dependence to interdependence, because in interdependence EACH PARTY MUST HAVE SOMETHING OF EQUAL VALUE TO OFFER IN TRADE. Only independents can produce something worth trading. And, in the case of elderly family members, that includes love. I must conclude that since you obviously have not conceived of the realm past that of dependence on others, that it is YOU who have not fully grown up. But resorting to diminutive insult is no form of rational argument. I wonder whether you realize it?