This video is lame. It's not worthy of an effort by a geek. My impression is that the person who shot the video accidentally recorded the eclipse and was really just wanting to make a time-lapse of the SF skyline and bridge.
For the first half of the clip I couldn't even tell where the moon was, I kept focusing on the red blinky light on the bridge.
Lame, Lame, Lame.
Full marks for the attempt though. Next time skip the wide-angle, or better yet use a long lens or a low power (20x) scope with motor drive. -- I would have done this, but I had prior plans that excluded my tending to the security of the rig.
I'd take you up on that offer, but it would be money wasted as you simply can not do the job for that little money.
The LOC doesn't just contain nice black and white typed texts. There are hand written documents in organic inks on animal hide and poorly constructed paper. There are paintings in every medium you can imagine and there are sound recordings on just about every media ever used: wax tubes, glass disks, wire spools, open reel, 8-track, cassette, CD, DVD, etc.
Each of these things needs to be digitized, categorized, indexed and offered in a searchable manner. A printed page, for example, will need to be photographed and transcribed/OCRed. Much of the work needs to be done on delicate objects that may be destroyed if not handled correctly. If you were to play a wax recording disk with too much pressure, or under the wrong environmental conditions, the disk would shatter in to an irreparable pile of small bits.
What formats will you store them in? What formats will you make them available in?
Re:OT, but here's why I'll stay with WinXP...
on
The Ultimate MacDate
·
· Score: 1
Mac OS ships with an X server so you can do the same thing. The server is optimized for the Aqua interface and all the X windows look and behave like Mac's standard windows.
On my G5 2x2 it takes about 3 seconds for me to start up X and get an xterm command prompt.
The brakes in the car are not controlled directly by a computer. Yes there is a control system whereby a computer can modulate the brakes to prevent skidding or improve traction, but the control is not complete. In any car made in the past 20 years the brakes will bring the car to a complete stop even if the engine is locked at full throttle and the transmission is in gear. Even if the brakes fail, the transmission or clutch can be disengaged and the car will roll to a stop. It's simply implausible that a car's systems would fail in such a manner as to make the car unstoppable without injuring or killing the driver.
The problems aren't with technology, the problems are with the people. Especially in the U.S. people treat automobiles as being trivial devices. They get in, start the engine and drive off, while talking on the phone, doing paperwork, putting on makeup, listening to the radio. This works most of the time because the vehicles are so reliable and traffic tends to be predictable. But the issues come in emergency training, how to handle the non-normal situations.
What do you do when your front right wheel falls off on the highway at 70mph? What do you do if your windshield is suddenly smashed and you can't see? What do you do if your engine goes to full throttle?
Almost every other mode of transportation has months to years of training involved, not for the every-day routine stuff, but for those off-the-wall disaster scenarios and other like them.
In the end, I can't discount this man's report that the car spontaneously accelerated. I do completely discount his report that he was unable to stop it almost as soon as the problem was noticed.
Does anyone have a link to the actual bill? Im a little confused, since copyright law states that all works are copyrighted the instant they are produced. From what I've seen so far, if I place a file on a network and allow others to download and trade it, we're all guilty of a crime under this bill. I've not read anywhere that the copyright in question must be registered, or that a complaint or statement of infringement must be filed by the copyright holder.
Put simply. if the language of the bill is as simple as reports make it out to be, the the World Wide Web will be effectively banned in the United States, indeed the Internet as a whole would be since almost everything could be considered a "file".
In the U.S. it is the whim of one man to launch nucular (so the man says) missiles. If the President says "launch", the military launches. period. Whether there would be an arrest/impeachment/international tribunal later is another matter, but nuclear launch authority is vested in the president
Or... connect up a modem or serial line to transfer the data from the computer over a modem or local link to another computer/laptop.
Or, since the employees have physical access, installing an additional HD in the box and copying all the data internally. You don't even have to copy it, just install a dead drive of the same model number, then take the computer's drive home and report the "malfunction" to I.T.
How long will it take someone to write a program with a built-in driver to access "external" volumes.
There is no point in banning removable media access if the computer is not physically secured and alarmed for tamper alerts.
The money I want back is my $6 Bush just gave to Florida to rebuild after the hurricanes.
If we can give $2B to morons who continually build non-hurricane-proof structures in an area known to have frequent and severe hurricanes, then surely we can scrounge up another $5B for NASA?
NASA will be treading lightly as it pertains to ANY missions that could endanger the safety of their astronauts...
More astronauts will die, this is simply unavoidable. ANYONE who wants to claim that there will never be another death as a result of space flight is simply stupid.
If NASA, the government or the people of the country can't deal with that, then let's declare war on outer space and start using the military to explore/conquer.
This also solves the NASA funding issue be using the vast amount of money they goes in to the "national defense" instead of the puny sums NASA has to beg for each year.
Re:Somebody Set Us Up the Reactor!
on
Port-A-Nuke
·
· Score: 1
There won't be any "compensation" paid by the receiving country. It's in the best interest of the U.S. DOE to do this for free:
1. The United States comprises less than 5% of the world population 2. The U.S. consumes over 30% of the world's oil and other fossil fuels 3. The developing world's demand for fossil fuel will grow exponentially with their economic growth 4. The U.S. citizens don't like the idea of paying $8/gallon for gasoline or $500/month for home heating 5. The U.S. has basically decided to never build another nuclear (fission) power plant in the country 6. We're surely not going to stifle our own economy to keep fuel demand low, so we'll either have to stifle other's economies or their demand for for fossil fuel. Non-FF electric generation goes a long way towards that.
When you look at the facts, building small nuclear power plants and giving them to developing countries keeps our coal, natural gas and fuel oil prices low thus saving the U.S. more money then they would charge for the plants.
Of course, it would make a whole lot more sense to me if they tried to use some other generation techniques wherever feasible: wind, solar (PV, and furnace), hydro, etc.
From the article:...under two federal civil laws: the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which prohibits false or misleading representations...
The thing is, as I understand it, FDCPA rules only apply to third party collectors. If you owe your CC company money, they are not limited by FDCPA. If the CC company sells your debt to another collection agency, THEN FDCPA kicks in.
Most first party collection departments seem to follow FDCPA, but I think they do so voluntarily, and to keep you as a customer.
It's not just toll free numbers. The PSTN is a complex beast. Almost any company that has more that perhaps 12 incoming phone lines may get this informaion.
The number you are calling from is almost always transmitted from your local office to the receiving office. Whether that number is sent as a caller ID string is a matter of your preference and the recipients subscription to the caller ID service. But even if not sent as a caller ID, it may still be sent.
If you have bulk incoming phone lines, they are usually delivered in a T1 or larger pipe configuration. These bulk deliveries are usually handled in a special way; your company PBX communicates with the telco central office switch at a higher level than a plain old residential phone line. You may have heard reference to "signal 7" at some point.
SS7 sets up a call between the CO and the PBX, the CO send information like date,time, dialed number and calling number and what channel the call it on. The PBX then "picks up" the call and then routes it to the proper extension based on any of that information.
The summary is that any larger company you call likely has the number you dialed from even if you have caller-ID sending blocked on your phone. This information is an inherent part of the phone system.
And yes, I'm simplifying and glossing over some things, but the concept is there.
It is the actual platters that are made from a ceramic glass instead of metal. The glass has better thermal tolerance and is lighter and stronger than the previous metals used.
Actually, in all the drives I've disassembled, the heads are parked off the data section and use a support arm to "lift" the head armatures away from the platters. When the drives start up, the spindle comes to speed, then the heads are released once the air layer is sufficient to support the heads.
Head crashes are indeed a major cause of catastrophic data loss, but I just don't see how a new layer on the disk will prevent that.
User data needs will always increase. I remember spending a boatload of cash on a 4GB drive about 6 or 7 years ago thinking that would be more than enough storage for at least the next decade. I've now got a 160GB boot drive and 1/2 TB array for storing media files (DV video, music, photos, etc).
I don't think it will be too much longer before people stop keeping physical files in the home, and instead scan all of their receipts, bills and statements as scanned images on their computers.
If you think video takes up a lot of space now, wait until all consumer electronics use HD video and storage needs increase by 4x.
Granted, I've not kept up on the intricate details of hard disk manufacture, but I recall that the drive heads were suspended above the physical media by a thin layer of air. Has that changed? What's the point of lubricating the disk surfaces if the heads don't touch them.
The scientist in me dislikes this talk of "evidence of water".
Isn't it more accurate to say that the rovers are finding more evidence that a relatively dense fluid was present at some point?
Couldn't it be some other liquified substance that didn't freeze at the temperatures we see now on the planet, or perhaps lower? Could liquid nitrogen or carbon dioxide have eroded these structures in a manner similar to liquid water and then boiled away over time to settle at the poles, or form Earth's atmosphere?
As far as I can tell, the only reason we're talking about water is because that's the only fluid we've seen form these structures on Earth so far.
Granted, if you are approaching this from a standpoint of parts to hack with, I don't think you can find a color LCD screen for $20, never mind a full CCD with digitizer and memory card.
Their business model depends on getting the camera back in usable form. It would certainly put a dent in profits if either the cameras didn't get returned, or were returned in a fashion in which they could no longer be used without significant refurbishment (new lens, LCD, etc).
If the processor and memory stay in the display X11 won't do it, X most definitely requires a CPU and memory to run. I'm fairly certain the poster was talking about something more like the NTSC broadcast protocol where you transmit video as a raster image to the target receiver(s) that have no computing power.
WiFi just doesn't have the bandwidth to drive a remote display like that.
Rather than just speed, distance and time of day I think there are some more telling statistics the could record: 1. Acceleration/deceleration rates. Constantly starting from traffic lights at full throttle or stomping the brake just before turning in to a driveway? Higher rate. 2. Lights. Don't turn your headlights on at sunset? higher rate. 3. horn. constantly honking in traffic? Aggressive driver or poor planning. Higher rate. 4. Turn signals. Use them, get a lower rate. Don't your rate goes up.
To me those stats go more toward being a safe driver than simply vehicle speed. Speed doesn't kill, it's the sudden changes in speed that injure. If just speed killed, we should all be dead; we're all traveling a t perhaps 100,000 miles per hour all the time
Slashdot Mirror
This video is lame. It's not worthy of an effort by a geek.
My impression is that the person who shot the video accidentally recorded the eclipse and was really just wanting to make a time-lapse of the SF skyline and bridge.
For the first half of the clip I couldn't even tell where the moon was, I kept focusing on the red blinky light on the bridge.
Lame, Lame, Lame.
Full marks for the attempt though. Next time skip the wide-angle, or better yet use a long lens or a low power (20x) scope with motor drive. -- I would have done this, but I had prior plans that excluded my tending to the security of the rig.
I'm not complaining about the cost at all. I'd say do it if it costs $2 Billion. I'm all for open access to knowledge.
Take the money from the military and "intelligence" budgets.
And what do you do about the sound recordings and other media in the library? The LOC is not exclusively about books.
I'd take you up on that offer, but it would be money wasted as you simply can not do the job for that little money.
The LOC doesn't just contain nice black and white typed texts. There are hand written documents in organic inks on animal hide and poorly constructed paper. There are paintings in every medium you can imagine and there are sound recordings on just about every media ever used: wax tubes, glass disks, wire spools, open reel, 8-track, cassette, CD, DVD, etc.
Each of these things needs to be digitized, categorized, indexed and offered in a searchable manner. A printed page, for example, will need to be photographed and transcribed/OCRed.
Much of the work needs to be done on delicate objects that may be destroyed if not handled correctly. If you were to play a wax recording disk with too much pressure, or under the wrong environmental conditions, the disk would shatter in to an irreparable pile of small bits.
What formats will you store them in? What formats will you make them available in?
Mac OS ships with an X server so you can do the same thing. The server is optimized for the Aqua interface and all the X windows look and behave like Mac's standard windows.
On my G5 2x2 it takes about 3 seconds for me to start up X and get an xterm command prompt.
The brakes in the car are not controlled directly by a computer. Yes there is a control system whereby a computer can modulate the brakes to prevent skidding or improve traction, but the control is not complete. In any car made in the past 20 years the brakes will bring the car to a complete stop even if the engine is locked at full throttle and the transmission is in gear. Even if the brakes fail, the transmission or clutch can be disengaged and the car will roll to a stop. It's simply implausible that a car's systems would fail in such a manner as to make the car unstoppable without injuring or killing the driver.
The problems aren't with technology, the problems are with the people. Especially in the U.S. people treat automobiles as being trivial devices. They get in, start the engine and drive off, while talking on the phone, doing paperwork, putting on makeup, listening to the radio. This works most of the time because the vehicles are so reliable and traffic tends to be predictable. But the issues come in emergency training, how to handle the non-normal situations.
What do you do when your front right wheel falls off on the highway at 70mph? What do you do if your windshield is suddenly smashed and you can't see? What do you do if your engine goes to full throttle?
Almost every other mode of transportation has months to years of training involved, not for the every-day routine stuff, but for those off-the-wall disaster scenarios and other like them.
In the end, I can't discount this man's report that the car spontaneously accelerated. I do completely discount his report that he was unable to stop it almost as soon as the problem was noticed.
Does anyone have a link to the actual bill?
Im a little confused, since copyright law states that all works are copyrighted the instant they are produced.
From what I've seen so far, if I place a file on a network and allow others to download and trade it, we're all guilty of a crime under this bill. I've not read anywhere that the copyright in question must be registered, or that a complaint or statement of infringement must be filed by the copyright holder.
Put simply. if the language of the bill is as simple as reports make it out to be, the the World Wide Web will be effectively banned in the United States, indeed the Internet as a whole would be since almost everything could be considered a "file".
Seriously... do they expect us to believe that GTA will run on a PDP11?
In the U.S. it is the whim of one man to launch nucular (so the man says) missiles. If the President says "launch", the military launches. period.
Whether there would be an arrest/impeachment/international tribunal later is another matter, but nuclear launch authority is vested in the president
Or... connect up a modem or serial line to transfer the data from the computer over a modem or local link to another computer/laptop.
Or, since the employees have physical access, installing an additional HD in the box and copying all the data internally. You don't even have to copy it, just install a dead drive of the same model number, then take the computer's drive home and report the "malfunction" to I.T.
How long will it take someone to write a program with a built-in driver to access "external" volumes.
There is no point in banning removable media access if the computer is not physically secured and alarmed for tamper alerts.
The money I want back is my $6 Bush just gave to Florida to rebuild after the hurricanes.
If we can give $2B to morons who continually build non-hurricane-proof structures in an area known to have frequent and severe hurricanes, then surely we can scrounge up another $5B for NASA?
NASA will be treading lightly as it pertains to ANY missions that could endanger the safety of their astronauts ...
More astronauts will die, this is simply unavoidable. ANYONE who wants to claim that there will never be another death as a result of space flight is simply stupid.
If NASA, the government or the people of the country can't deal with that, then let's declare war on outer space and start using the military to explore/conquer.
This also solves the NASA funding issue be using the vast amount of money they goes in to the "national defense" instead of the puny sums NASA has to beg for each year.
There won't be any "compensation" paid by the receiving country. It's in the best interest of the U.S. DOE to do this for free:
1. The United States comprises less than 5% of the world population
2. The U.S. consumes over 30% of the world's oil and other fossil fuels
3. The developing world's demand for fossil fuel will grow exponentially with their economic growth
4. The U.S. citizens don't like the idea of paying $8/gallon for gasoline or $500/month for home heating
5. The U.S. has basically decided to never build another nuclear (fission) power plant in the country
6. We're surely not going to stifle our own economy to keep fuel demand low, so we'll either have to stifle other's economies or their demand for for fossil fuel. Non-FF electric generation goes a long way towards that.
When you look at the facts, building small nuclear power plants and giving them to developing countries keeps our coal, natural gas and fuel oil prices low thus saving the U.S. more money then they would charge for the plants.
Of course, it would make a whole lot more sense to me if they tried to use some other generation techniques wherever feasible: wind, solar (PV, and furnace), hydro, etc.
From the article: ...under two federal civil laws: the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which prohibits false or misleading representations...
The thing is, as I understand it, FDCPA rules only apply to third party collectors. If you owe your CC company money, they are not limited by FDCPA. If the CC company sells your debt to another collection agency, THEN FDCPA kicks in.
Most first party collection departments seem to follow FDCPA, but I think they do so voluntarily, and to keep you as a customer.
It's not just toll free numbers. The PSTN is a complex beast. Almost any company that has more that perhaps 12 incoming phone lines may get this informaion.
The number you are calling from is almost always transmitted from your local office to the receiving office. Whether that number is sent as a caller ID string is a matter of your preference and the recipients subscription to the caller ID service. But even if not sent as a caller ID, it may still be sent.
If you have bulk incoming phone lines, they are usually delivered in a T1 or larger pipe configuration. These bulk deliveries are usually handled in a special way; your company PBX communicates with the telco central office switch at a higher level than a plain old residential phone line. You may have heard reference to "signal 7" at some point.
SS7 sets up a call between the CO and the PBX, the CO send information like date,time, dialed number and calling number and what channel the call it on. The PBX then "picks up" the call and then routes it to the proper extension based on any of that information.
The summary is that any larger company you call likely has the number you dialed from even if you have caller-ID sending blocked on your phone. This information is an inherent part of the phone system.
And yes, I'm simplifying and glossing over some things, but the concept is there.
It is the actual platters that are made from a ceramic glass instead of metal. The glass has better thermal tolerance and is lighter and stronger than the previous metals used.
Actually, in all the drives I've disassembled, the heads are parked off the data section and use a support arm to "lift" the head armatures away from the platters.
When the drives start up, the spindle comes to speed, then the heads are released once the air layer is sufficient to support the heads.
Head crashes are indeed a major cause of catastrophic data loss, but I just don't see how a new layer on the disk will prevent that.
User data needs will always increase.
I remember spending a boatload of cash on a 4GB drive about 6 or 7 years ago thinking that would be more than enough storage for at least the next decade.
I've now got a 160GB boot drive and 1/2 TB array for storing media files (DV video, music, photos, etc).
I don't think it will be too much longer before people stop keeping physical files in the home, and instead scan all of their receipts, bills and statements as scanned images on their computers.
If you think video takes up a lot of space now, wait until all consumer electronics use HD video and storage needs increase by 4x.
Granted, I've not kept up on the intricate details of hard disk manufacture, but I recall that the drive heads were suspended above the physical media by a thin layer of air. Has that changed? What's the point of lubricating the disk surfaces if the heads don't touch them.
Zterm
The scientist in me dislikes this talk of "evidence of water".
Isn't it more accurate to say that the rovers are finding more evidence that a relatively dense fluid was present at some point?
Couldn't it be some other liquified substance that didn't freeze at the temperatures we see now on the planet, or perhaps lower? Could liquid nitrogen or carbon dioxide have eroded these structures in a manner similar to liquid water and then boiled away over time to settle at the poles, or form Earth's atmosphere?
As far as I can tell, the only reason we're talking about water is because that's the only fluid we've seen form these structures on Earth so far.
Granted, if you are approaching this from a standpoint of parts to hack with, I don't think you can find a color LCD screen for $20, never mind a full CCD with digitizer and memory card.
Their business model depends on getting the camera back in usable form. It would certainly put a dent in profits if either the cameras didn't get returned, or were returned in a fashion in which they could no longer be used without significant refurbishment (new lens, LCD, etc).
Time stamp from the /. article: Posted by CmdrTaco on 08-16-04 10:30 AM
/. article appears to have been published 14 minutes in advance of the LISnews article.
Time stamp from the LiS arcicle: posted by John on Monday August 16, @10:44AM
Now.. neither tells me the time zone offset but the
If the processor and memory stay in the display X11 won't do it, X most definitely requires a CPU and memory to run.
I'm fairly certain the poster was talking about something more like the NTSC broadcast protocol where you transmit video as a raster image to the target receiver(s) that have no computing power.
WiFi just doesn't have the bandwidth to drive a remote display like that.
Rather than just speed, distance and time of day I think there are some more telling statistics the could record:
1. Acceleration/deceleration rates. Constantly starting from traffic lights at full throttle or stomping the brake just before turning in to a driveway? Higher rate.
2. Lights. Don't turn your headlights on at sunset? higher rate.
3. horn. constantly honking in traffic? Aggressive driver or poor planning. Higher rate.
4. Turn signals. Use them, get a lower rate. Don't your rate goes up.
To me those stats go more toward being a safe driver than simply vehicle speed. Speed doesn't kill, it's the sudden changes in speed that injure. If just speed killed, we should all be dead; we're all traveling a t perhaps 100,000 miles per hour all the time