Yes, yes, yes- everyone holds up that particular case as a shiny bright sword.
Unfortunately it is not the same- we know none of the technical details of what was done with the UK works- not to mention the UK work was done in- the UK.
Thus factually we do not have enough information to make a determination- and regardless I stand by my statement- the guy is a schmuck for doing what he did.
The images are unambiguously in the public domain? How so? The museum seems to think otherwise- and I (as a photographer and somewhat knowledgeable in copyright law for photography) tend to agree.
The moment a photographer presses the shutter button to capture an image the photographer owns the right to the image. The photographer- not the corporation who hired them. In some countries a blind photographer can tells someone else to press the shutter button and the blind photographer owns the copyright.
Now the photographer can assign rights, as per a contract, to the entity that has hired them to do the photography work- and that assignment can be irrevocable, single use, multi use, first press, etc. But no matter what when that button went down a copywritten work was created.
So what we have here is a very confusing summary of a legal letter claiming that the museum owns the copyrights and had the original, full size images taken by the photographer, available online but not directly linked. Their excuse is abhorrent, IMHO, to claim that knowing how to use a URL and download something is illegal. I don't think they have a leg there- but not knowing the particulars about the contract signed, who funded it (I'm assuming it was public dollars, but that's an assumption), the business relationship between the photographer and the museum... I think it's a very big stretch to claim their assertions are without merit.
A photographer lighting artwork may (and this comes from experience) spend hours trying to get all the nuances of the painting recorded properly. What would you say if the photographer had to take 9 consecutive images at different exposures and merge them all into a HDR-type image, then spend hours rendering it down to sRGB to view correctly on the screen. Brush strokes can reflect light- perhaps he had to cross-polarize shots carefully.
What I'm saying is that a photo of a painting is still considered a copyrightable item- you may wish it to be derivative to the 'public domain' but if that were the case any photograph in front of a public domain piece of work would automatically be public domain- and it is clearly not.
We don't know all the story, but it is very evident to me that he crossed the line. Intentions are good- I admire it- but definitely did something that was not in the spirit of wiki and may be against the law.
And no, whomever marked my other comments troll- this is not a troll. Just because I'm taking a stand against what you think "Free is right all the time" doesn't make me a troll. I'm providing thoughtfully logically laid out information for additional discussion.
I just re-read the letter- they're claiming he downloaded the images that someone else took and uploaded them to Wiki. That is a clear violation in every sense of the law- he doesn't own the images (public domain) and he is using someone elses work without attribution.
I was under the impression he had taken the photos himself and uploaded them. If that's not the case then he's an idiot and really ought to do the right thing here- remove them- and redirect them to the museum's website.
There may be some room for negotiation but I'd say he's starting from a deep hole.
Sorry for misreading it- editors could do a little better job editing story titles to reflect what is actually happening rather than just putting their spin on it.
I have a modified IR camera I use that I built to photograph artwork- it's amazing what you can sometimes see 'underneath' the paints the artist chose.
In one gallery in Germany I saw a work of art in IR that had been severely damaged and retouched- it was clearly evident in the IR photograph but not in the VIS photograph. I showed them to the curator (I spoke no German and he spoke no English) and tried to ask what had happened to it in its history (as there was no statement of that on the work).
I swear the man was going to shit a brick. He had a look of pure panic on his face when he saw the IR photograph- I think he immediately ran up there to check on it. I don't think he understood what he was seeing (not surprising) so my wife and I left ASAP.
Now to me, IR would bring value- so would UV photographs of the artwork. I know there are places that can do this much more professionally... but hey, a hobby is a hobby.
The museum is out of line. In a 'real world' they'd lose. They'll probably respond by banning photography and forcing anyone that does want to do shots to sign a waiver.
On September 12, 2008, co-defendant Morton Sobell admitted that he and Julius Rosenberg were guilty of spying for the Soviet Union. He believed Ethel was aware of the espionage, but did not actively participate.[7]
? Did I miss something here- they were guilty of espionage.
I think he got off lightly. What's worse now is all the crap the REST of us will have to deal with because this fuck-nit couldn't follow the warnings and restrictions set forth by his company.
Actually, what is worse is everyone else- there are 1800 people in my company alone. We each have to take 3 hours of ITAR/EAR training, AT LEAST- I think I've done about 10 hours in the past year. That money gets charged to the government.
Guess who pays it? Guess who's gonna pay even MORE because of this nitwit.
... but most of the heavy lifting is going to come from genetically engineered microbes.
I've been following with interest the bacteria that was recently revived from the ice core samples. The assumption (logical or not) is that if they can survive that extreme situation they may be adapted to this sort of extreme condition.
With GE we can introduce traits, perhaps not as specific as we'd like, but still to tailor the needs. Bacteria that can break down iron oxide into Fe or other easily smeltable materials- that could extract gold (there has been some postulation that 'tracer' gold is nothing more than bacterial waste). We already have some plants that can selectively uptake metals and sequester them in the cellulose - but then breeding those with any other traits destroyed the character set that was capable of doing so.
I should also state I'm a fan of Mars from KSR- and if we start introducing extremophile bacterial colonies we may never find out if life evolved on that planet. I for one am waiting for that little tidbit and the Vatican's response (I expect it to be something along the lines of "Not intelligent thus God discarded the world as unsuitable", but I digress).
I say go for it... but I'd really really really want to know that the lab doing the work was fully set up to prevent accidental releases. While an extremophile may not like the conditions outside as too energetic... I'd hate to find out they're quickly adaptable - with those cell walls specifically thickened and hardened to handle UV (another assumption on my part) as well as low pressure they might just turn out to be a bitch to kill. Then again, keeping them in conflict with the UV sterilizer lights might just be the way to grow them hardier:)
That's a man that knows the law. I admire his statement and his tone of voice. He listened, asked 1 question, and answered.
I respect that.
The jackasses earlier in the audio recording, not so much. They're too shit-full of themselves... and they know they are breaking the law and thus avoid stating so.
This audio recording is priceless- because without it we'd have no proof. It's a pity the audio was released now- they should have waited until the court case to display it AFTER the affidavits were taken.
Some folks I've worked with get so wrapped up in the details or the fun of the project they forget the point- which may be what holds this up. Some of MS's interface stuff for voice and disability is pretty slick - but slick isn't functional and everything is still driven by the keyboard and mouse.
Now I've seen some exciting hardware that can interface to the tongue to display images (poor res) but basically it's rewiring the brain for a different type of input channel.
Who's got the time and money to build these? Not your average geek- and who's going to spend the weeks in deprivation to test it? Well, they might.... but not most folks I know. And if something goes south?
The best approach is to have a brain trust- a site that a research can come to and, with NDA's in place (I have reasons for that) With those NDAs in place then the researcher can say something like "I have this hardware and I need to be able to do..."
And thats when the power of the internet comes into play- the amount of research and pure power that can be drawn down to a single thread would crush through any difficulties- EE's, CE's, IE's, heck even your plain psychologists (if they hang out here) can bring talent to bear.
I mentor HS students. Most that I deal with are so incredibly incompetent that I am truly afraid for our society- these babies will be asking their parents to carry them out into the world with no prep.
There are kids that don't know what a screwdriver is or how to use it. Seriously. I had to hold a session on how to use a screwdriver. Gave them a drill with a bit in it and they could not figure out how to drive the screw into the wood.
This is also the group that would intentionally break their cell phones so their parents could pay the 50$ 'insurance fee' to get a new one. Just repeatedly drop the thing over and over and over and over.
I also watched one of them stare at the table saw blade as it was rotating- asked him what he was doing- and he said he knows he's not supposed to but he was wondering if he could tap the blade while it was spinning- if he was fast enough (look up table saw finger injuries- you'll understand why I was sickened).
Shop class, like gym class, should be mandatory for all students. So what if all they turn out is a crummy pencil holder- they did it. Want to make shop more interesting? Show them how to do CNC on wood- that's programming and wood working all in one go.
Right now this generation is nothing but consumption- they'll play their ipods, their little online games, and they go on to college coddled the entire way without a single original thought in their body.
I have a new 1.5 tb HD that, before I format, I may very well go ahead and try a new install and see if it works out of the box.
That's not to say that I don't have alot of faith but more along the lines that because of the way the video card works (nVidia) I have to use the proprietary driver- and it won't sync to the TV, which means I can not use it unless it starts x-windows... and I just don't really care to haul my monitors around.
Seems I spawned quite a bit of hate by relating my problems. As usual the linux zealots miss the point: A 4 year old motherboard with sound out is completely mis-read by the system and unrecognized.
I want a driver for XP? Sure thing- go search the 'net for it, download, and install.
I want a device to work in Linux? Go read a man page and if you don't get it right then, according to the folks I've seen here, go back to XP because you don't hack it...... and to think I work to administer unix systems...
You miss the point: I did get it to work. That means it could always work, from the beginning, but Ubuntu did not include the correct hardware recognition to set up the system. It also provides no easy method for me to report back those settings for others. If it was truly a manufacturer problem then I would still not be having sound.
That means the moment I got it to work I stopped fiddling- and every time I get the little red upgrade spot I hesitate and think: Is this the reboot that kills it?
It took almost 3 months to get the sound working on Ubuntu (TOS-link). Even to this day I'm scared that if I lose the system I'll lose the configuration- it required editing different accounts, adding new packages, modifying them in a non-standard fashion, adding options that weren't documented...
Windows XP? Put it in and the sound comes out.
I'll say the same thing about hard drives too- while the support is built in I still had to do some 20 commands to add, mount, locate, format, automount, edit the UUID manualy, fdisk....
Nothing better to kill 2 hours of your precious life.
It's been awhile since it's come up but it takes 7 of those little vibrations (if memory serves- I can ask the expert) to register the j-curve for the minimum contrast detection in the standard observer.
If you've got that much of a rat problem... get some metal conduit and run your cables in that. Splice boxes can be anything.- keep'em suspended in the middle of the room or cover with glue.
But you've got more of a food problem than anything- the rats won't stick around without a food supply and it sounds like they like what you're serving there.
If all else... just start putting down rat poison everywhere outside. It'll take your squirrels out too....
FIRST robotics, while not a 'reading list', would provide your math students hundreds or thousands of opportunities both in the field of mathematics but also engineering and science.
Right now I can think of a few dozen 'practical' real world problems for this years competition that I could use some students seriously grounded in math to think about and solve (radius of turn for Ackermann steering, forces on a gyro during a turn, etc) not to mention coding up and implementing algorithms.
Anyway- don't sell math short- there's money in the real world applications:)
... and describes he's having the following problems delivering a product out the door to a customer site that's overseas with engineer support staff that have been up and traveling for 24 hours to get there.
Do you
A) Tell him "Call tomorrow- it's quitting time" B) Bend over backwards to help. C) Grouch about it D) Solve it in 6 key strokes or less.
We have quite a few 'old timers' around our organizations. They think they 'know' it all, too, and they don't. In fact they're much more of a hindrance. We just, after a 3 months of complaining, got one to agree to replace the motherboard in a sun station- we had gone so far as to SCOPE the signal lines on the ports to point out there was a voltage issue... and that didn't even phase them.
A newer younger engineer would have simply yanked the board and dropped a new one in- which, btw, worked perfectly.
There are no right or wrong questions- it's the attitude towards helping out your fellow coworkers that's important. They don't teach it in school but the industry does burn it out. If they're older and they still have the right attitude (including how to help skunk work a project that doesn't have funding through leftover hardware) then they're the right choice.
If they don't have the helpful attitude, they're the wrong choice- age independent.
I work with a multitude of qualified and unqualified IT folks through the military and other contractor sites. All in all it's all about the attitude- that is the one thing I can recall about every single site. Most of the young ones are better with that... but I'm open minded.
I own 600 books at last count. I read them all (well, ok, except for the Star Trek ones... they're *cough* boxed up in the basement). So how much would it cost me to covert the library to kindle format? At the prices I've seen on amazon... a couple of grand.
No can do. There's just no cost benefit unless you're going to give me the content I already own for free.
Exactly my point- you got it, even if it got me labeled as 'troll'.
Any new technology has its 'abuse' power. Twitter is new. It must be studied and understood for its implications as a threat to the public's safety.
As for sensationalism I'd say someone got ahold of the report down the chain of command and ran with it- I doubt there was any attempt to 'eek out' money for more projects initially- just your standard threat assessment.
My opinion, of course. I don't troll. I've seen enough not to need to.
I was fine with the synopsis up until this line: "Just wait until the Army finds out about chat rooms and email!". Seriously- who added the commentary? Folks at/.? The submitter? The Admin?
Believe it or not, there are individuals that exist only to inflict pain on someone else. The job of the military is to prevent that. Most of the posts here are railing *against* a military that has, by popular doctrine and re-election, done what it has been instructed to do.
Now there are also government agencies that exist to evaluate threats and to think up ways of protecting your average American citizen. It takes some of the best and the brightest- even those that DO NOT WANT THIS WAR- and instructs them to come up with ways that someone may abuse a new technology to cause harm. They do so. And it turns out there is a tool that could be exploited, in real time, via phone, to bring pain and suffering to individuals.
Why bash them for this? My god don't you believe they'd rather hope for the best in people? You mock them for doing their duty to keep the country safe.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Only when the TSA requires every bag to be ticketed with the screener's information and timestamp every inspection, including a key fob to keep track, and require every employee to be a two man team, will thefts cease.
I've had probably close to 2000$ worth of merchandise, DVDs, and company equipment stolen. I once had government owned assets stolen out of a travel case.
I now dupe all my DVDs before taking them out on the road and I pack notices in each bag of company equipment: Government Owned Asset. The serial is recorded and registered with the manufacturer. Value is over 1500$ and will be prosecuted as felony theft: The government has an infinite numbers of lawyers looking to nail your ass to the wall- why steal this sort of trouble?
Oddly enough I've only had one bag 'misplaced' since I started the warning notices and then it was returned, a week later, from Vegas.
Welcome, Internet. You take every baboon, idiot, and moron and give them the opportunity to be heard at the same level of volume as every other individual out there. You then take a news agency, wanting to capitalize on not having to pay stringers constantly, and provide said speech free to the world.
I laugh.
I spent 5 years in college doing photojournalism, 4 years in High school, and 2 years in middle school- all with a camera plastered to my hip and face. My life was defined in photos of other people. Now out, I look forth and see every person with a cell phone camera capturing daily drivel and spouting it off as 'news'. News is immediate and important based on locality- ie, it's important if you shoot it because it's important to you- the rest of the world (more likely than not) just doesn't give a shit. However- and here is where the internet and CNN step in- you now have a distribution model to *make* it important.
So the health of Steve Jobs is suspect- we all know that. Apple hid it from the world so the stock price wouldn't tank. Apple has done it to itself by not being candid in the past- and has reinforced the notion that if the almighty master suffers the company will suffer. Had they suffered this price dump in the past the future wouldn't revolve around every little sniffle.
Investigate all you want- Even if the stock was manipulated many people took profit at the news- because they recognized the inherit fear that Apple has now linked itself to Steve Job's life.
Thus, I give you my opinion on citizen journalism: http://xkcd.org/481/ *please note that this post itself citizen journalism and the author is subject to the same rant he inflicts upon others.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, yes, yes- everyone holds up that particular case as a shiny bright sword.
Unfortunately it is not the same- we know none of the technical details of what was done with the UK works- not to mention the UK work was done in- the UK.
Thus factually we do not have enough information to make a determination- and regardless I stand by my statement- the guy is a schmuck for doing what he did.
The images are unambiguously in the public domain? How so? The museum seems to think otherwise- and I (as a photographer and somewhat knowledgeable in copyright law for photography) tend to agree.
The moment a photographer presses the shutter button to capture an image the photographer owns the right to the image. The photographer- not the corporation who hired them. In some countries a blind photographer can tells someone else to press the shutter button and the blind photographer owns the copyright.
Now the photographer can assign rights, as per a contract, to the entity that has hired them to do the photography work- and that assignment can be irrevocable, single use, multi use, first press, etc. But no matter what when that button went down a copywritten work was created.
So what we have here is a very confusing summary of a legal letter claiming that the museum owns the copyrights and had the original, full size images taken by the photographer, available online but not directly linked. Their excuse is abhorrent, IMHO, to claim that knowing how to use a URL and download something is illegal. I don't think they have a leg there- but not knowing the particulars about the contract signed, who funded it (I'm assuming it was public dollars, but that's an assumption), the business relationship between the photographer and the museum... I think it's a very big stretch to claim their assertions are without merit.
A photographer lighting artwork may (and this comes from experience) spend hours trying to get all the nuances of the painting recorded properly. What would you say if the photographer had to take 9 consecutive images at different exposures and merge them all into a HDR-type image, then spend hours rendering it down to sRGB to view correctly on the screen. Brush strokes can reflect light- perhaps he had to cross-polarize shots carefully.
What I'm saying is that a photo of a painting is still considered a copyrightable item- you may wish it to be derivative to the 'public domain' but if that were the case any photograph in front of a public domain piece of work would automatically be public domain- and it is clearly not.
We don't know all the story, but it is very evident to me that he crossed the line. Intentions are good- I admire it- but definitely did something that was not in the spirit of wiki and may be against the law.
And no, whomever marked my other comments troll- this is not a troll. Just because I'm taking a stand against what you think "Free is right all the time" doesn't make me a troll. I'm providing thoughtfully logically laid out information for additional discussion.
I just re-read the letter- they're claiming he downloaded the images that someone else took and uploaded them to Wiki. That is a clear violation in every sense of the law- he doesn't own the images (public domain) and he is using someone elses work without attribution.
I was under the impression he had taken the photos himself and uploaded them. If that's not the case then he's an idiot and really ought to do the right thing here- remove them- and redirect them to the museum's website.
There may be some room for negotiation but I'd say he's starting from a deep hole.
Sorry for misreading it- editors could do a little better job editing story titles to reflect what is actually happening rather than just putting their spin on it.
I have a modified IR camera I use that I built to photograph artwork- it's amazing what you can sometimes see 'underneath' the paints the artist chose.
In one gallery in Germany I saw a work of art in IR that had been severely damaged and retouched- it was clearly evident in the IR photograph but not in the VIS photograph. I showed them to the curator (I spoke no German and he spoke no English) and tried to ask what had happened to it in its history (as there was no statement of that on the work).
I swear the man was going to shit a brick. He had a look of pure panic on his face when he saw the IR photograph- I think he immediately ran up there to check on it. I don't think he understood what he was seeing (not surprising) so my wife and I left ASAP.
Now to me, IR would bring value- so would UV photographs of the artwork. I know there are places that can do this much more professionally ... but hey, a hobby is a hobby.
The museum is out of line. In a 'real world' they'd lose. They'll probably respond by banning photography and forcing anyone that does want to do shots to sign a waiver.
On September 12, 2008, co-defendant Morton Sobell admitted that he and Julius Rosenberg were guilty of spying for the Soviet Union. He believed Ethel was aware of the espionage, but did not actively participate.[7]
? Did I miss something here- they were guilty of espionage.
I think he got off lightly. What's worse now is all the crap the REST of us will have to deal with because this fuck-nit couldn't follow the warnings and restrictions set forth by his company.
Actually, what is worse is everyone else- there are 1800 people in my company alone. We each have to take 3 hours of ITAR/EAR training, AT LEAST- I think I've done about 10 hours in the past year. That money gets charged to the government.
Guess who pays it? Guess who's gonna pay even MORE because of this nitwit.
... but most of the heavy lifting is going to come from genetically engineered microbes.
I've been following with interest the bacteria that was recently revived from the ice core samples. The assumption (logical or not) is that if they can survive that extreme situation they may be adapted to this sort of extreme condition.
With GE we can introduce traits, perhaps not as specific as we'd like, but still to tailor the needs. Bacteria that can break down iron oxide into Fe or other easily smeltable materials- that could extract gold (there has been some postulation that 'tracer' gold is nothing more than bacterial waste). We already have some plants that can selectively uptake metals and sequester them in the cellulose - but then breeding those with any other traits destroyed the character set that was capable of doing so.
I should also state I'm a fan of Mars from KSR- and if we start introducing extremophile bacterial colonies we may never find out if life evolved on that planet. I for one am waiting for that little tidbit and the Vatican's response (I expect it to be something along the lines of "Not intelligent thus God discarded the world as unsuitable", but I digress).
I say go for it... but I'd really really really want to know that the lab doing the work was fully set up to prevent accidental releases. While an extremophile may not like the conditions outside as too energetic... I'd hate to find out they're quickly adaptable - with those cell walls specifically thickened and hardened to handle UV (another assumption on my part) as well as low pressure they might just turn out to be a bitch to kill. Then again, keeping them in conflict with the UV sterilizer lights might just be the way to grow them hardier :)
at the end that says "You're free to go".
That's a man that knows the law. I admire his statement and his tone of voice. He listened, asked 1 question, and answered.
I respect that.
The jackasses earlier in the audio recording, not so much. They're too shit-full of themselves... and they know they are breaking the law and thus avoid stating so.
This audio recording is priceless- because without it we'd have no proof. It's a pity the audio was released now- they should have waited until the court case to display it AFTER the affidavits were taken.
My driveway is 2 car wide, 2 car long- so 1 mile, 100,000$ = 19$/foot. Most of the quotes I've gotten want 4K to redo it. 50 feet is just under 1k.
Anyways....
Some folks I've worked with get so wrapped up in the details or the fun of the project they forget the point- which may be what holds this up. Some of MS's interface stuff for voice and disability is pretty slick - but slick isn't functional and everything is still driven by the keyboard and mouse.
Now I've seen some exciting hardware that can interface to the tongue to display images (poor res) but basically it's rewiring the brain for a different type of input channel.
Who's got the time and money to build these? Not your average geek- and who's going to spend the weeks in deprivation to test it? Well, they might.... but not most folks I know. And if something goes south?
The best approach is to have a brain trust- a site that a research can come to and, with NDA's in place (I have reasons for that) With those NDAs in place then the researcher can say something like "I have this hardware and I need to be able to do..."
And thats when the power of the internet comes into play- the amount of research and pure power that can be drawn down to a single thread would crush through any difficulties- EE's, CE's, IE's, heck even your plain psychologists (if they hang out here) can bring talent to bear.
My thoughts, of course.
I mentor HS students. Most that I deal with are so incredibly incompetent that I am truly afraid for our society- these babies will be asking their parents to carry them out into the world with no prep.
There are kids that don't know what a screwdriver is or how to use it. Seriously. I had to hold a session on how to use a screwdriver. Gave them a drill with a bit in it and they could not figure out how to drive the screw into the wood.
This is also the group that would intentionally break their cell phones so their parents could pay the 50$ 'insurance fee' to get a new one. Just repeatedly drop the thing over and over and over and over.
I also watched one of them stare at the table saw blade as it was rotating- asked him what he was doing- and he said he knows he's not supposed to but he was wondering if he could tap the blade while it was spinning- if he was fast enough (look up table saw finger injuries- you'll understand why I was sickened).
Shop class, like gym class, should be mandatory for all students. So what if all they turn out is a crummy pencil holder- they did it. Want to make shop more interesting? Show them how to do CNC on wood- that's programming and wood working all in one go.
Right now this generation is nothing but consumption- they'll play their ipods, their little online games, and they go on to college coddled the entire way without a single original thought in their body.
Then again, perhaps I only see the stupid ones.
I have a new 1.5 tb HD that, before I format, I may very well go ahead and try a new install and see if it works out of the box.
That's not to say that I don't have alot of faith but more along the lines that because of the way the video card works (nVidia) I have to use the proprietary driver- and it won't sync to the TV, which means I can not use it unless it starts x-windows... and I just don't really care to haul my monitors around.
Thanks for the update.
That was my problem :)
Seems I spawned quite a bit of hate by relating my problems. As usual the linux zealots miss the point: A 4 year old motherboard with sound out is completely mis-read by the system and unrecognized.
I want a driver for XP? Sure thing- go search the 'net for it, download, and install.
I want a device to work in Linux? Go read a man page and if you don't get it right then, according to the folks I've seen here, go back to XP because you don't hack it... ... and to think I work to administer unix systems...
Standard Asound driver.
You miss the point: I did get it to work. That means it could always work, from the beginning, but Ubuntu did not include the correct hardware recognition to set up the system. It also provides no easy method for me to report back those settings for others. If it was truly a manufacturer problem then I would still not be having sound.
That means the moment I got it to work I stopped fiddling- and every time I get the little red upgrade spot I hesitate and think: Is this the reboot that kills it?
It took almost 3 months to get the sound working on Ubuntu (TOS-link). Even to this day I'm scared that if I lose the system I'll lose the configuration- it required editing different accounts, adding new packages, modifying them in a non-standard fashion, adding options that weren't documented...
Windows XP? Put it in and the sound comes out.
I'll say the same thing about hard drives too- while the support is built in I still had to do some 20 commands to add, mount, locate, format, automount, edit the UUID manualy, fdisk....
Nothing better to kill 2 hours of your precious life.
... at least in my field.
It's been awhile since it's come up but it takes 7 of those little vibrations (if memory serves- I can ask the expert) to register the j-curve for the minimum contrast detection in the standard observer.
Useful for image refresh calculations :)
If you've got that much of a rat problem ... get some metal conduit and run your cables in that. Splice boxes can be anything.- keep'em suspended in the middle of the room or cover with glue.
But you've got more of a food problem than anything- the rats won't stick around without a food supply and it sounds like they like what you're serving there.
If all else ... just start putting down rat poison everywhere outside. It'll take your squirrels out too....
FIRST robotics, while not a 'reading list', would provide your math students hundreds or thousands of opportunities both in the field of mathematics but also engineering and science.
Right now I can think of a few dozen 'practical' real world problems for this years competition that I could use some students seriously grounded in math to think about and solve (radius of turn for Ackermann steering, forces on a gyro during a turn, etc) not to mention coding up and implementing algorithms.
Anyway- don't sell math short- there's money in the real world applications :)
Jason / Team Lead for 1591 Greece Gladiators
Nah, it's security who's locked down the system and IT keeps all the spare hardware in the back closet. At least thats how they do it in our realm ;)
... and describes he's having the following problems delivering a product out the door to a customer site that's overseas with engineer support staff that have been up and traveling for 24 hours to get there.
Do you
A) Tell him "Call tomorrow- it's quitting time"
B) Bend over backwards to help.
C) Grouch about it
D) Solve it in 6 key strokes or less.
We have quite a few 'old timers' around our organizations. They think they 'know' it all, too, and they don't. In fact they're much more of a hindrance. We just, after a 3 months of complaining, got one to agree to replace the motherboard in a sun station- we had gone so far as to SCOPE the signal lines on the ports to point out there was a voltage issue... and that didn't even phase them.
A newer younger engineer would have simply yanked the board and dropped a new one in- which, btw, worked perfectly.
There are no right or wrong questions- it's the attitude towards helping out your fellow coworkers that's important. They don't teach it in school but the industry does burn it out. If they're older and they still have the right attitude (including how to help skunk work a project that doesn't have funding through leftover hardware) then they're the right choice.
If they don't have the helpful attitude, they're the wrong choice- age independent.
I work with a multitude of qualified and unqualified IT folks through the military and other contractor sites. All in all it's all about the attitude- that is the one thing I can recall about every single site. Most of the young ones are better with that... but I'm open minded.
... convert my library to Kindle Format?
I own 600 books at last count. I read them all (well, ok, except for the Star Trek ones... they're *cough* boxed up in the basement). So how much would it cost me to covert the library to kindle format? At the prices I've seen on amazon... a couple of grand.
No can do. There's just no cost benefit unless you're going to give me the content I already own for free.
Exactly my point- you got it, even if it got me labeled as 'troll'.
Any new technology has its 'abuse' power. Twitter is new. It must be studied and understood for its implications as a threat to the public's safety.
As for sensationalism I'd say someone got ahold of the report down the chain of command and ran with it- I doubt there was any attempt to 'eek out' money for more projects initially- just your standard threat assessment.
My opinion, of course. I don't troll. I've seen enough not to need to.
I was fine with the synopsis up until this line: "Just wait until the Army finds out about chat rooms and email!". Seriously- who added the commentary? Folks at /.? The submitter? The Admin?
Believe it or not, there are individuals that exist only to inflict pain on someone else. The job of the military is to prevent that. Most of the posts here are railing *against* a military that has, by popular doctrine and re-election, done what it has been instructed to do.
Now there are also government agencies that exist to evaluate threats and to think up ways of protecting your average American citizen. It takes some of the best and the brightest- even those that DO NOT WANT THIS WAR- and instructs them to come up with ways that someone may abuse a new technology to cause harm. They do so. And it turns out there is a tool that could be exploited, in real time, via phone, to bring pain and suffering to individuals.
Why bash them for this? My god don't you believe they'd rather hope for the best in people? You mock them for doing their duty to keep the country safe.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Only when the TSA requires every bag to be ticketed with the screener's information and timestamp every inspection, including a key fob to keep track, and require every employee to be a two man team, will thefts cease.
I've had probably close to 2000$ worth of merchandise, DVDs, and company equipment stolen. I once had government owned assets stolen out of a travel case.
I now dupe all my DVDs before taking them out on the road and I pack notices in each bag of company equipment: Government Owned Asset. The serial is recorded and registered with the manufacturer. Value is over 1500$ and will be prosecuted as felony theft: The government has an infinite numbers of lawyers looking to nail your ass to the wall- why steal this sort of trouble?
Oddly enough I've only had one bag 'misplaced' since I started the warning notices and then it was returned, a week later, from Vegas.
It was.
But as an upside the dates were really fun....
Welcome, Internet. You take every baboon, idiot, and moron and give them the opportunity to be heard at the same level of volume as every other individual out there. You then take a news agency, wanting to capitalize on not having to pay stringers constantly, and provide said speech free to the world.
I laugh.
I spent 5 years in college doing photojournalism, 4 years in High school, and 2 years in middle school- all with a camera plastered to my hip and face. My life was defined in photos of other people. Now out, I look forth and see every person with a cell phone camera capturing daily drivel and spouting it off as 'news'. News is immediate and important based on locality- ie, it's important if you shoot it because it's important to you- the rest of the world (more likely than not) just doesn't give a shit. However- and here is where the internet and CNN step in- you now have a distribution model to *make* it important.
So the health of Steve Jobs is suspect- we all know that. Apple hid it from the world so the stock price wouldn't tank. Apple has done it to itself by not being candid in the past- and has reinforced the notion that if the almighty master suffers the company will suffer. Had they suffered this price dump in the past the future wouldn't revolve around every little sniffle.
Investigate all you want- Even if the stock was manipulated many people took profit at the news- because they recognized the inherit fear that Apple has now linked itself to Steve Job's life.
Thus, I give you my opinion on citizen journalism: http://xkcd.org/481/
*please note that this post itself citizen journalism and the author is subject to the same rant he inflicts upon others.