People aren't going to buy into another format change just yet. Especially since it'll involve buying a whole new system to get the "benefits". 16bit/44.1 audio CDs are here to stay, for at least another 10 years. I mean jeez, most people actually think mp3's and CDs burned from them sound good enough!!!
Seems to me I heard the same argument about 8-track cassettes a few years ago. Actually, that was about 1985 or so, and I don't believe I've seen an 8-track cassette for sale since the late 80's. Except of course in a yard sale for a nickel.
No kidding. Start with this picture (JPEG, 144Kb) of me on vacation last year. Now position your head squarely in front of the monitor, about 24" from the screen, and cross your eyes slowly until you see three pictures - the center one will be in stereo.
This is rather like the random-dot stereograms, but inverted left/right from that arrangement. In the RDS, you RELAX your eyes, the opposite of crossing them. I personally find this difficult, so I swap the images so crossed eyes produce the correct left/right arrangement instead.
Incidentally, I used to fly Microsoft Flight Simulator back in 1988 this way - yes, version 1.0. I discovered that I could set two different forward views from the Chase Plane mode, with one plane offset slightly to the right and the other slightly to the left. By properly arranging the windows and crossing my eyes, I could fly around looking at the simulated world in true 3D. I believe you can still do this with the different window options available in Flight Sim, and you could probably do this in any game that allows you to set up multiple windows from different viewpoints.
Now, granted, it is tough on your eyes, and it's kind of hard to see any non-stereo items (like the control panel), but it IS 3D and requires NO hardware. From time to time I do this for other purposes - like the picture above.
You can also do this with any camera if you have a still (or mostly still) subject - take a photo, move sideways about four inches and take another. Then load both photos into your image editor of choice, position them side-by-side with the proper left/right orientation, and you're set.
I work for the government. My organization is installing a network-wide VERY secure firewall. All POP3 access is about to go belly up, and I'll bet Hotmail and AOL web mail are out along with it. Not good for me, but no sense grousing about it. So I dug around on the net and found a PERL script to install on my web server, that lets me check my POP3 mailbox at will - via HTTP. Check out ThinMailer for details.
It runs on my own server, not a commonly-blocked Hotmail server. It even lets me reply to messages. And because it's on my own server, and written in good-ol' PERL, I was able to completely customize it - to filter spam a dozen ways from Sunday, including naughty-word lists, friend lists, and blacklists. I can do much better filtering than common POP3 programs (Netscape, or Eudora, or Outlook Express) because I have absolute control - I can filter on any part of the message, strip out HTML, limit download size, you name it. In fact, I like it so much I have started using it FIRST to identify and delete spam before I run OE to download the mail onto my PC.
Don't grouse to me about server space; I'd bet 90% of/. readers have server space with cgi-bin access. If not, and you're getting blocked at work, this might be a good reason. Are you unwilling to pay $5-10/month for this?
Com'on, instead of whining about it, do something useful.
Noise canx headphones don't help hi freq noise
on
Voices in Your Head
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· Score: 2
Sorry, but if you actually TRY the noise-cancelling headphones you'll quickly discover that they don't work so well on high-frequency content. They're mainly intended to help damp out the rumbling of jet engines inside an airplane cabin. You can still clearly hear human speech.
The problem is that to accurately cancel a sound, you have to EXACTLY invert its phase - match it and you double the volume instead. Bass is a lower frequency with a longer wavelength and is easier to accurately match and thus cancel. You can measure the sound with a microphone a small distance from the ear canal, without causing much problem. But the high frequency sound is more directional, and you'd have to mount the microphone which measures the sound to be canceled almost directly in the ear canal to get a real measurement of what you need to be canceling. Not exactly comfortable to wear, or convenient.
As electronics get smaller, I wouldn't be surprised to see active cancellation hearing-aid-style inserts. This method would probably work perfectly. As a matter of fact, the only real high-end noise cancelling system used something like that setup, with a remote electronics pack.
A number of the comments here about advertising and the proliferation of displays reminded me of Minority Report. Everywhere the characters went were advertising displays - wrapped around the walls of stores and malls, moving billboards, even animated cereal boxes (John Anderton angrily tosses one aside after being bothered by the distraction at one point). Obviously Spielberg has the same vision of the future as many of you.
Most of the posts here assume plastic = transparent. Yeah, that would be nice. But it's not necessarily the case here. Nothing in the article suggests that this display is transparent.
Get real. Aside from the power cord, *MY* TV has two conductors for input. Okay, I'll give you a hint. It's called RF. Not good enough? What about ethernet, 8 pins. Want true video instead of digital data? How about the 15 or so pins on a VGA display? If the decoding electronics are embedded, you don't need lots of connectors.
If you can afford the millions of transistors for the display electronics, you can afford a million more for the decoding too.
Many of the ideas mentioned here require optics to work properly.
My first quibble is that nothing in the article suggests that this display is transparent. Most of the posts here assume plastic = transparent. Not necessarily.
Secondly, the optics are always going to be a problem, until we have some form of holographic display.
For example, a HUD is only useful if it's focused well out ahead of you - near infinity - and the ONLY way to do this is with substantial, and large, optics. I've BUILT a HUD before - I know what I'm talking about. A transparent display simply won't do any good for you. And to do a DECENT HUD, you have to have a very bright display - able to be seen in bright daylight, brighter than the background material. Finally, the optics of the primary lens MUST be as large as the viewable area - because the rays are parallel to appear focused at infinity, the width/height of the area where your eyes can see the image is exactly the same as the size of the lens. So you can see that a cheap display won't help a lot, and a transparent display is pointless.
Also, a wearable display is a neat idea - but only if you focus it so your eyes can see it. Again, the transparency is no good if it's too close for your eyes to focus. Take a photographic slide, for example, and mount it three inches from your eye. Should be great, right? Super high resolution, bright clear colors, transparent... NOPE. You can't even see the image; it's just a dark blur obscuring your vision. You MUST have some optics to focus the image where your eye can focus on it.
>I'm always curious to ask something from people like you, who I assume believe the >bible is the word of God: Why does God condone slavery? And if we all agree that >slavery is bad, doesn't that indicate that either 1) we are going against God's wishes, >or 2) the bible really is just another book, and has nothing to do with the question of God.
As I understand it, the Bible does not condone slavery.
The Old Testament at first glance does appear to support slavery. If you start reading the Bible at Genesis and give up before Matthew, you would probably get the idea that the world of God is a pretty ugly place. God many times in the Old Testament used the Hebrew people to inflict His righteous judgement on peoples (hard for many "Isn't God so warm and fuzzy" types to reconcile), so the Hebrews were often commanded to subjugate entire cities. Within this context, slavery appears to be condoned. However, I would point to the fact that even in modern-day Israel and Judaism, which (at least in theory) believes in the Old Testament scriptures, and not the New Testament, slavery is not permitted. So apparently a "kosher" interpretation of the Old Testament does not even really support slavery.
However, moving ahead to consider Christianity, in the Old Testament God dictated a lot of laws to govern the life of the Hebrews, but His perfect creation had not yet come - Jesus as the One who made the Law to be obsolete - or more accurately, the One who fulfilled the Law perfectly. So the New Testament, with its record of the life of Jesus, is a more accurate representation of "God's World as it Should Be." It sets forth God's perfect pattern, with His Son as the model for our behavior and salvation through trust in His death on the cross, instead of our slavish adherence to rules and good works. Therefore, the New Testament should be depended upon for insight, in preference to the Old Testament.
Given this framework, the New Testament includes several discussions of slavery, most by the Apostle Paul, who advises those who are already in slavery to do their work dilgently so as to be a good witness to their masters, and advises those who are slaveholders to treat their slaves with respect, recognizing that they are equals in God's eyes. The problem most modern readers have is that we tend to forget that the Bible was written in context. Slavery was a common fact in all cultures at the time. It is addressed as such. Within that context, Paul and many other writers in the New Testament repeatedly stress that God does not play favorites, that all men are equal before God, and that any instance where one man abuses his relationship with another is wrong. If all Christians followed this advice, I doubt we'd even be having this conversation. But we are not perfect, even those of us who believe and try to follow the Bible's teachings.
One final thought. The fact that something happens in the Bible does not mean it is God's desire, will, commandment, or creation. As I described in my parent post, God gave us free will. That unfortunately includes the ability to royally screw everything up. If He stepped in to fix everything we did wrong, it would not be free will. And one of the consequences of our chosing to screw things up is that people get hurt - or killed - or enslaved.
One fairly indisputable fact is that any society that is based squarely upon the Judeo-Christian principles of ethics, government, and religion has the best overall track record for humanitarian treatment of all peoples regardless of their individual characteristics or status. Look at any Muslim, atheistic, or Hindu nation, and compare the average human rights record with those of the United States and much of Europe. Neither side is perfect, and never will be, but I believe a fair assessment of the conditions experienced by their residents bears up this point of view.
This deserves a response. I might as well burn some of my hard-won karma.
I for one believe that. Are you implying that I'm therefore foolish?
What I find foolish is the man who believes he understands a religion merely from observing its imperfect adherents. I'm sure you feel justified in your view of Christianity, based on how some Christians have behaved. How about Islam - I would bet you also think that the average Muslim is not a bad person - it's a few bad eggs who give it a bad name. If so, I submit that your view is hypocritical. If you want to understand Christianity, you ought to find out what its users' manual says before you make broad sweeping statements to a few million readers.
Here's the way the Bible presents the situation - which is NOT how you've presented it. First, the creator did NOT choose one single person. He chose HIMSELF. The Bible plainly states that God became man, and gave up his own human life on earth, to make a simple and easy way for man to be restored to a relationship with Himself. "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." (John 3:17). Read the surrounding few verses for some more context.
Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God created man expressly so that He could have a relationship with us - not to rule us, but to have us become His friends. See Genesis 1:26 and John 15:13. In the working of His creation, we are free to turn away from God, as you plainly have done. That is your choice - God loved you enough to be willing to let you walk away from Him. But the consequence of your choice is eternal separation from Him. He didn't condemn anyone to eternal pain - each person who walks away from Him chooses his own suffering. If your preference is to live without God, he grants you that wish, despite His strong interest in a loving relationship with you.
Unless I'm misreading this, the image only appears on the data side of the disc. And the last time I looked, even on a bare no-label CD, I couldn't see where the data ended from the label side.
I don't know about you, but I'd never label the data side of my CD-R.
Whenever they figure out how to show it on the LABEL side, call me.
(Somebody please mod up the parent post by MegaManX. I would if I could moderate AND post... anyone with moderator points remembers how hard it was to climb into the ranks of "bonus posting"...)
MegaManX wrote:
It will always be 'in a way' the fault of some human decision if a robot does something. In a
way, since we build the robots (or the robots that built the robot).
...
This question relates to my last statement. When will a robot's action not be 'in a way' the
result of a human decision? When will it be considered as a 'deliberate' action from the
robot? Should it not be considered as the fault of the person who designed the robot (who
designed the robot (who designed...))?
Can a serial killer defend himself by telling the world he was beaten by his father when he was
young? Not entirely, but he will try. Why? Because, like robots, we are quite deterministic
in our actions. It is always hard to decide who is taking the real decision; the creator or the
creation.
This is an excellent observation. I don't agree with it, but it does raise an excellent point, especially legally (a question for future robotics lawyers, I'm sure). Who is responsible?
The reason I don't agree is that we are discussing "intelligent" robotics. I suppose it would be generally accepted that a standard portion of the definition of robot intelligence would be the ability to make decisions completely unanticipated by the creator. If you program a system to learn from its environment, then modify its responses based on that learning, then the creator no longer has culpability for its actions.
(This brings up an interesting moral, or religious, point. The same could be discussed regarding God and mankind - does man truly have free will? Is he a product solely of his environment, or solely his Creator, or both? (I think both - I believe in free will.) It seems that every time robotic intelligence is discussed, religious overtones quickly arise.)
It was the fault of the victim, or some other human decision, that got someone killed or injured in every case you mention in Japan - and anywhere else in the world.
The reason there is no pogrom is that the robot was incapable of deciding to kill a human. The moment that becomes possible, and the first human is DELIBERATELY injured by a thinking robot, we WILL see an Asimovian response to intelligent robots.
Asimov has proven to be incredibly perceptive, and long-sighted. You just have to think as far ahead as he does, to see the value in his thinking.
Great for stamping holes. How about traces?
on
Nanoimprint Lithography
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The two links gush with claims but provide little evidence of its utility. The only demonstration shown there demonstrates making holes in substrate, or leaving dots of material. It does not show making any traces. I'd wait to be impressed until I see something beyond a row of dots.
Think about it. McAfee and Symmantec LIVE on FUD. While I believe they do offer a useful product, they profit greatly on inflating the danger level and inflaming the imagination. Marketing 101, not Email 101, teaches that principle. Create a Need, Sell a Product.
Even more importantly, I believe their FUDmongering (maybe I should patent that word...) only creates a "market" for all the virus-writers. If viruses didn't get the hype and attention, there would be far fewer scriptkiddies out there hacking away.
I work in an aviation acquisition role for the US Navy. I help evaluate aviation products. I think I can speak to this with some background knowledge.
Actually despite the performance compromises, we find our country (the US) in a position where budget takes a front seat to absolute function.
In this arena, a plane that minimizes the huge complexity of a support infrastructure is a good thing. The one thing this design will do, and do very well, is to create a multi-service purchasing and support system advantage. The majority of the cost of an aviation weapon is the pieces-parts that keep it flying. Those fees get paid LONG after the initial investment. With one highly common set of parts, all three services (Air Force, Navy, Marines) get to all buy the same parts - making it cheaper by far to maintain and operate many years into the future. Furthermore, with some exceptions, doing the testing and development on upgrades and parts replacements will also be cheaper for the life of the plane.
Sure, you give up performance. But for the forseeable future, we are not going to really need (for example) a Mach 3 fighter. So why pay for one, that can't do anything else?
Since this plane is autonomous, and flies a preprogrammed mission based on intelligence and satellite data, the chances are actually much lower of a real-time mistake. Most of the friendly fire deaths in recent combat have been caused by a pilot error in the heat of combat - "Gee, that looks like an Iraqi tank." Forget it - this won't happen in a preprogrammed mission.
Sure, you will always have bad targeting, but you're largely reducing the ability of ONE person's incorrect decision to make someone's day really, really bad. Instead, you've got quite a few eyes looking at the targeting data, along with plenty of direct access to information about where your troops actually are.
So in my opinion, this thing will end up killing FEWER friendly troops than ever before.
This thing won't require a pilot for every little detail of its flight. If you change your mind about something, you tell the computer, LAND AT HOME BASE. Push the "Commit" button. Wait half an hour, and the thing lands and parks itself at the ramp.
If you think this is a pipe dream, they've already done it - repeatably, and reliably, with the Global Hawk - which has seen combat in Afghanistan. The plane is preprogrammed (by an engineer, NOT a pilot), and taxis out, takes off, flies its mission, returns to base, and taxis back to the ramp - without a single additional real-time command. (GPS is a wonderful thing...)
The only difference here is that this thing will be also able to drop bombs.
So, YES, it will save pilot training costs. Hugely. One person would be able to command many of these things - even at the same time. If the computer cannot handle the problem by itself, it probably cannot be handled by a real-time pilot either.
These planes will be largely automatic and will not require a remote pilot. There may be a requirement for a last-minute "fire or not" decision but a lot of the work over the last few years has been in the autonomy arena. We've been building and flying drones for years - nothing new there. The QF-4 could easily be loaded with bombs - the F-4 was quite capable of that. The NEW part of all this is the ability to tell the plane "Go here and destroy this" and expect it to happen by itself.
In case you didn't read the article, here's the essential quote: In a typical mission scenario, multiple UCAVs will be equipped with preprogrammed objectives and preliminary targeting information from ground-based mission planners. Operations can then be carried out autonomously, but can also be managed interactively or revised en route by UCAV controllers should new objectives or targeting information dictate.
Anyone who's ever been in a secure facility run by a halfway competent government or any large corporation knows that there are several countermeasures already in place. Many of them were designed for other reasons but serve the same purpose. For example, at one secure computing facility I've visited, the ENTIRE shell of the building's secure area is entirely surrounded by a Faraday cage of solid metal 1/8" thick. Even the floor and ceiling are covered. Seams are bolted shut. Wires and pipes run thru special conduits that trap EM energy. Doorways have metal-finger contacts and vault-style closing mechanisms. I doubt you'd get much diffused light through those measures. Also, several slightly less secure conference rooms I've seen included double blinds on the windows, including metal venitian blinds and thick pull drapes. Again, pretty light resistant. Now, those measures are designed for things like Tempest resistance (the metal Faraday cage) and preventing optical snooping (deadening the sound hitting the glass, thus preventing using an IR laser to bounce a reflection off the window, in an attempt to reconstruct the sound inside the room). But any company that is serious about security already takes great care to protect that information and wouldn't be susceptible to this problem.
The one thing it does reemphasize is that simply sitting with your back to the wall isn't enough. Well, thanks to Tempest and LED blinking and insecure wireless and hosts of other issues, we already knew that.
Frankly, the one surprising thing about this article is that it made it into the mainstream media. I'm quite surprised that the British government, or whatever home country, didn't consider this research highly classified and quickly squelch its publication.
After hunting around for a reasonably-priced reading spotlight to mount in the minivan for my kids to read after dark, I couldn't find anything that was (1) bright and clear at low wattage (2) priced under $100US (3) small enough to hide in the trimwork. Then putzing around Radio Shack one day, I saw the rack of white LEDs, and decided to give them a whirl.
I bought 6 WLEDs for about $30, a couple 100-ohm resistors and 1K trimmer pots for current limiting and dimming, and went home. Half an hour and a few solder joints later, I had mounted the 6 LEDs shining thru holes in my overhead panel, pointed at my steering wheel area (hey, first I helped MYSELF, not the kids). I found that I could run three LEDs, with a voltage drop of about 3.5V each, in series with the fixed 100 ohm resistor and a trimmer pot. So two sets in parallel worked well. I couldn't wait until nighttime.
After dark, out to the van I went. Switch on - WOW.
First impression - the color was all wrong. Until I realized that I'm so used to yellow light that pure white was almost distracting. But the light was BRIGHT and very crisp. From about 18 inches from LEDs to reading material, with only 6 LEDs, I had more light than with the original dome light 20 inches away, and the color was perfect - I could enjoy reading material with photos, without straining to see the colors. The pool of light was about 15 inches across. The LEDs I used are rated at 30deg beam spread (to the point of half brightness) so that seemed about right for six lights pointed a bit apart from each other. Best of all, unlike a dome lamp, there was NO spillover light to the rest of the interior - with the light on I could still easily see out the front to drive. Don't try that for long with a glaring dome lamp.
One other thing was worth noting - there were faint yellow/blue bands in the pool of light, noticable only when looking at a large mostly blank page. This is probably due to the blue LED/yellow phosphor combination used to make white light.
The biggest problem was cost. At Radio Shack prices of $4.99 each, I couldn't affort enough LEDs to do the other five seating locations. But it was still far cheaper than a quality aircraft-style reading lamp, and just as bright. If I wanted more brightness, I can easily add more LEDs.
Check out this link - http://www.theledlight.com - for some really cool ideas, parts, kits, assembled lamps, all based on LED technology. Really cool, and a LOT cheaper for the bare LEDs than Radio Shack. About $2.50 or less each.
Soon I'm going to order some bulk WLEDs from them - and light up the rest of the vehicle interior.
Actually they DO blow under the wing. I've seen footage of it lifting off and flying. Also a WIG vehicle was demonstrated on the river near where I work, and it too had front-mounted propulsion (props instead of jets, for this small version) with exactly the same purpose. The props were pivoted, rather like a V-22 engine pod.
First off, IAAAE - I am an Aero Engineer. Glide ratio is largely a function of the wing's efficiency - and that is almost entirely a function of the ratio of wingspan to wing "chord" - in otherwords, the ratio of width to length of the wing. (Ever wonder why a sailplane has such long thin wings?) But to get a good ground effect, you need a short stubby wing, not a long thin one - you need a longer surface to "trap" the cushion of air underneath. So wing efficiency and ground effect are actually mutually exclusive. That's the main reason that you cannot get far off the ground in a WIG vehicle. The ONLY reason it gets up is the ground effect - you simply don't have enough lift otherwise. (You can zoom for brief distances, but there is so much drag due to the lousy efficiency that you cannot sustain high flight.)
So if you remember that glide ratio is related to wing efficiency, and that wing efficiency is awful in a WIG, you get a lousy glide ratio in these things.
But as "mpe" mentions, you can easily settle down on the water and slow down to become a boat.
One other interesting fact about these things is worth mentioning. If you see the pics of the Russian monster WIG (sometimes called the "Caspian Sea Monster", due to its extreme size), you'll notice the engines at the FRONT, up high on a winglike structure. Why? Well, to get "airborne", you have to get up to speed. But water drag is so high, and the plane is so big, that they cannot simply accelerate up to flying speed. So the only way to get enough air under the wings to get out of the water is to blow it directly there - so they mount the engines in front of the wing, so that the airstream can be directed under the wing to boost the plane off the water at a relatively low speed - after which they can start really accelerating.
... its existing laws about regulated frequencies, and when it does, it does so selectively. I have a friend who lives in a huge planned housing development with acre-sized lots. Dave's neighbor runs a ham-style system with a huge antenna, and spends hours a day chatting with remote buddies. The interference from the system wreaks havoc on the entire neighborhood telephone, cable, and broadcast systems. Landline (even corded, not to mention cordless) telephones frequently are unusuable because of the interference. But despite repeated calls to the FCC from Dave and many of his neighbors, nothing is ever done. (Seems like a good use for some SEMTEX or a hand grenade.)
The point is, the FCC may have pretty strict laws about interference. And it may spent lots of bucks and time on Big Industry. But in my experience, the FCC has no interest in enforcing the laws for Mr. Small Guy - that is, unless Mr. Small Guy does something that gets Big Industry mad.
... why is a laser pointer more useful for directional things than a simple flashlight? After all, an incandescent flashlight is simply an omnidirectional light source with a broad frequency range, roughly focused with a (usually cheap) parabolic reflector. Why could a flashlight not produce as potent and well-focused beam of light with the same colimating lens? After all, you can build a very cheap arc lamp that puts out thousands of watts of light. If you could focus THAT on a small spot, it would be as hot as the arc that produced it in the first place. So what's the problem with doing that?
(This is a serious question. I'd love to hear the answer from a qualified physics type. I'm even willing to burn a karma point to show this at a 2 rating, so I stand a chance of getting a real answer.)
I'm just guessing, but it's probably because the monochromatic nature of most laser pointers means that ALL the light focuses the same thru the collimating lens. This is of course because different frequencies of light have different refraction angles thru a lens. Therefore, with a broad-spectrum source like a light bulb, you cannot sharply focus the beam, because each frequency focuses at a different place. As I write this, it occurs to me that's why a flashlight uses a parabolic reflector - because reflection is not affected by wavelenght like refraction is. But with a parabolic lens, the fully parallel beam can never be smaller than the diameter of the lens.
Slashdot Mirror
- People aren't going to buy into another format change just yet. Especially since it'll involve buying a whole new system to get the "benefits". 16bit/44.1 audio CDs are here to stay, for at least another 10 years. I mean jeez, most people actually think mp3's and CDs burned from them sound good enough!!!
Seems to me I heard the same argument about 8-track cassettes a few years ago. Actually, that was about 1985 or so, and I don't believe I've seen an 8-track cassette for sale since the late 80's. Except of course in a yard sale for a nickel.This is rather like the random-dot stereograms, but inverted left/right from that arrangement. In the RDS, you RELAX your eyes, the opposite of crossing them. I personally find this difficult, so I swap the images so crossed eyes produce the correct left/right arrangement instead.
Incidentally, I used to fly Microsoft Flight Simulator back in 1988 this way - yes, version 1.0. I discovered that I could set two different forward views from the Chase Plane mode, with one plane offset slightly to the right and the other slightly to the left. By properly arranging the windows and crossing my eyes, I could fly around looking at the simulated world in true 3D. I believe you can still do this with the different window options available in Flight Sim, and you could probably do this in any game that allows you to set up multiple windows from different viewpoints.
Now, granted, it is tough on your eyes, and it's kind of hard to see any non-stereo items (like the control panel), but it IS 3D and requires NO hardware. From time to time I do this for other purposes - like the picture above.
You can also do this with any camera if you have a still (or mostly still) subject - take a photo, move sideways about four inches and take another. Then load both photos into your image editor of choice, position them side-by-side with the proper left/right orientation, and you're set.
It runs on my own server, not a commonly-blocked Hotmail server. It even lets me reply to messages. And because it's on my own server, and written in good-ol' PERL, I was able to completely customize it - to filter spam a dozen ways from Sunday, including naughty-word lists, friend lists, and blacklists. I can do much better filtering than common POP3 programs (Netscape, or Eudora, or Outlook Express) because I have absolute control - I can filter on any part of the message, strip out HTML, limit download size, you name it. In fact, I like it so much I have started using it FIRST to identify and delete spam before I run OE to download the mail onto my PC.
Don't grouse to me about server space; I'd bet 90% of /. readers have server space with cgi-bin access. If not, and you're getting blocked at work, this might be a good reason. Are you unwilling to pay $5-10/month for this?
Com'on, instead of whining about it, do something useful.
Sorry, but if you actually TRY the noise-cancelling headphones you'll quickly discover that they don't work so well on high-frequency content. They're mainly intended to help damp out the rumbling of jet engines inside an airplane cabin. You can still clearly hear human speech.
The problem is that to accurately cancel a sound, you have to EXACTLY invert its phase - match it and you double the volume instead. Bass is a lower frequency with a longer wavelength and is easier to accurately match and thus cancel. You can measure the sound with a microphone a small distance from the ear canal, without causing much problem. But the high frequency sound is more directional, and you'd have to mount the microphone which measures the sound to be canceled almost directly in the ear canal to get a real measurement of what you need to be canceling. Not exactly comfortable to wear, or convenient.
As electronics get smaller, I wouldn't be surprised to see active cancellation hearing-aid-style inserts. This method would probably work perfectly. As a matter of fact, the only real high-end noise cancelling system used something like that setup, with a remote electronics pack.
A number of the comments here about advertising and the proliferation of displays reminded me of Minority Report. Everywhere the characters went were advertising displays - wrapped around the walls of stores and malls, moving billboards, even animated cereal boxes (John Anderton angrily tosses one aside after being bothered by the distraction at one point). Obviously Spielberg has the same vision of the future as many of you.
Most of the posts here assume plastic = transparent. Yeah, that would be nice. But it's not necessarily the case here. Nothing in the article suggests that this display is transparent.
Get real. Aside from the power cord, *MY* TV has two conductors for input. Okay, I'll give you a hint. It's called RF. Not good enough? What about ethernet, 8 pins. Want true video instead of digital data? How about the 15 or so pins on a VGA display? If the decoding electronics are embedded, you don't need lots of connectors.
If you can afford the millions of transistors for the display electronics, you can afford a million more for the decoding too.
Many of the ideas mentioned here require optics to work properly.
My first quibble is that nothing in the article suggests that this display is transparent. Most of the posts here assume plastic = transparent. Not necessarily.
Secondly, the optics are always going to be a problem, until we have some form of holographic display.
For example, a HUD is only useful if it's focused well out ahead of you - near infinity - and the ONLY way to do this is with substantial, and large, optics. I've BUILT a HUD before - I know what I'm talking about. A transparent display simply won't do any good for you. And to do a DECENT HUD, you have to have a very bright display - able to be seen in bright daylight, brighter than the background material. Finally, the optics of the primary lens MUST be as large as the viewable area - because the rays are parallel to appear focused at infinity, the width/height of the area where your eyes can see the image is exactly the same as the size of the lens. So you can see that a cheap display won't help a lot, and a transparent display is pointless.
Also, a wearable display is a neat idea - but only if you focus it so your eyes can see it. Again, the transparency is no good if it's too close for your eyes to focus. Take a photographic slide, for example, and mount it three inches from your eye. Should be great, right? Super high resolution, bright clear colors, transparent... NOPE. You can't even see the image; it's just a dark blur obscuring your vision. You MUST have some optics to focus the image where your eye can focus on it.
>I'm always curious to ask something from people like you, who I assume believe the
>bible is the word of God: Why does God condone slavery? And if we all agree that
>slavery is bad, doesn't that indicate that either 1) we are going against God's wishes,
>or 2) the bible really is just another book, and has nothing to do with the question of God.
As I understand it, the Bible does not condone slavery.
The Old Testament at first glance does appear to support slavery. If you start reading the Bible at Genesis and give up before Matthew, you would probably get the idea that the world of God is a pretty ugly place. God many times in the Old Testament used the Hebrew people to inflict His righteous judgement on peoples (hard for many "Isn't God so warm and fuzzy" types to reconcile), so the Hebrews were often commanded to subjugate entire cities. Within this context, slavery appears to be condoned. However, I would point to the fact that even in modern-day Israel and Judaism, which (at least in theory) believes in the Old Testament scriptures, and not the New Testament, slavery is not permitted. So apparently a "kosher" interpretation of the Old Testament does not even really support slavery.
However, moving ahead to consider Christianity, in the Old Testament God dictated a lot of laws to govern the life of the Hebrews, but His perfect creation had not yet come - Jesus as the One who made the Law to be obsolete - or more accurately, the One who fulfilled the Law perfectly. So the New Testament, with its record of the life of Jesus, is a more accurate representation of "God's World as it Should Be." It sets forth God's perfect pattern, with His Son as the model for our behavior and salvation through trust in His death on the cross, instead of our slavish adherence to rules and good works. Therefore, the New Testament should be depended upon for insight, in preference to the Old Testament.
Given this framework, the New Testament includes several discussions of slavery, most by the Apostle Paul, who advises those who are already in slavery to do their work dilgently so as to be a good witness to their masters, and advises those who are slaveholders to treat their slaves with respect, recognizing that they are equals in God's eyes. The problem most modern readers have is that we tend to forget that the Bible was written in context. Slavery was a common fact in all cultures at the time. It is addressed as such. Within that context, Paul and many other writers in the New Testament repeatedly stress that God does not play favorites, that all men are equal before God, and that any instance where one man abuses his relationship with another is wrong. If all Christians followed this advice, I doubt we'd even be having this conversation. But we are not perfect, even those of us who believe and try to follow the Bible's teachings.
One final thought. The fact that something happens in the Bible does not mean it is God's desire, will, commandment, or creation. As I described in my parent post, God gave us free will. That unfortunately includes the ability to royally screw everything up. If He stepped in to fix everything we did wrong, it would not be free will. And one of the consequences of our chosing to screw things up is that people get hurt - or killed - or enslaved.
One fairly indisputable fact is that any society that is based squarely upon the Judeo-Christian principles of ethics, government, and religion has the best overall track record for humanitarian treatment of all peoples regardless of their individual characteristics or status. Look at any Muslim, atheistic, or Hindu nation, and compare the average human rights record with those of the United States and much of Europe. Neither side is perfect, and never will be, but I believe a fair assessment of the conditions experienced by their residents bears up this point of view.
I for one believe that. Are you implying that I'm therefore foolish?
What I find foolish is the man who believes he understands a religion merely from observing its imperfect adherents. I'm sure you feel justified in your view of Christianity, based on how some Christians have behaved. How about Islam - I would bet you also think that the average Muslim is not a bad person - it's a few bad eggs who give it a bad name. If so, I submit that your view is hypocritical. If you want to understand Christianity, you ought to find out what its users' manual says before you make broad sweeping statements to a few million readers.
Here's the way the Bible presents the situation - which is NOT how you've presented it. First, the creator did NOT choose one single person. He chose HIMSELF. The Bible plainly states that God became man, and gave up his own human life on earth, to make a simple and easy way for man to be restored to a relationship with Himself. "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." (John 3:17). Read the surrounding few verses for some more context.
Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God created man expressly so that He could have a relationship with us - not to rule us, but to have us become His friends. See Genesis 1:26 and John 15:13. In the working of His creation, we are free to turn away from God, as you plainly have done. That is your choice - God loved you enough to be willing to let you walk away from Him. But the consequence of your choice is eternal separation from Him. He didn't condemn anyone to eternal pain - each person who walks away from Him chooses his own suffering. If your preference is to live without God, he grants you that wish, despite His strong interest in a loving relationship with you.
I'd invite anyone who wants to know more about this to visit a simple presentation of the Gospel, at http://www.simusic.com/john316/. You may also find this letter about God's love enlightening: http://www.simusic.com/lenora.html.
Unless I'm misreading this, the image only appears on the data side of the disc. And the last time I looked, even on a bare no-label CD, I couldn't see where the data ended from the label side.
I don't know about you, but I'd never label the data
side of my CD-R.
Whenever they figure out how to show it on the LABEL side, call me.
(Somebody please mod up the parent post by MegaManX. I would if I could moderate AND post... anyone with moderator points remembers how hard it was to climb into the ranks of "bonus posting"...)
MegaManX wrote:
It will always be 'in a way' the fault of some human decision if a robot does something. In a
way, since we build the robots (or the robots that built the robot).
...
This question relates to my last statement. When will a robot's action not be 'in a way' the
result of a human decision? When will it be considered as a 'deliberate' action from the
robot? Should it not be considered as the fault of the person who designed the robot (who
designed the robot (who designed...))?
Can a serial killer defend himself by telling the world he was beaten by his father when he was
young? Not entirely, but he will try. Why? Because, like robots, we are quite deterministic
in our actions. It is always hard to decide who is taking the real decision; the creator or the
creation.
This is an excellent observation. I don't agree with it, but it does raise an excellent point, especially legally (a question for future robotics lawyers, I'm sure). Who is responsible?
The reason I don't agree is that we are discussing "intelligent" robotics. I suppose it would be generally accepted that a standard portion of the definition of robot intelligence would be the ability to make decisions completely unanticipated by the creator. If you program a system to learn from its environment, then modify its responses based on that learning, then the creator no longer has culpability for its actions.
(This brings up an interesting moral, or religious, point. The same could be discussed regarding God and mankind - does man truly have free will? Is he a product solely of his environment, or solely his Creator, or both? (I think both - I believe in free will.) It seems that every time robotic intelligence is discussed, religious overtones quickly arise.)
It was the fault of the victim, or some other human decision, that got someone killed or injured in every case you mention in Japan - and anywhere else in the world.
The reason there is no pogrom is that the robot was incapable of deciding to kill a human. The moment that becomes possible, and the first human is DELIBERATELY injured by a thinking robot, we WILL see an Asimovian response to intelligent robots.
Asimov has proven to be incredibly perceptive, and long-sighted. You just have to think as far ahead as he does, to see the value in his thinking.
The two links gush with claims but provide little evidence of its utility. The only demonstration shown there demonstrates making holes in substrate, or leaving dots of material. It does not show making any traces. I'd wait to be impressed until I see something beyond a row of dots.
Think about it. McAfee and Symmantec LIVE on FUD. While I believe they do offer a useful product, they profit greatly on inflating the danger level and inflaming the imagination. Marketing 101, not Email 101, teaches that principle. Create a Need, Sell a Product.
Even more importantly, I believe their FUDmongering (maybe I should patent that word...) only creates a "market" for all the virus-writers. If viruses didn't get the hype and attention, there would be far fewer scriptkiddies out there hacking away.
I work in an aviation acquisition role for the US Navy. I help evaluate aviation products. I think I can speak to this with some background knowledge.
Actually despite the performance compromises, we find our country (the US) in a position where budget takes a front seat to absolute function.
In this arena, a plane that minimizes the huge complexity of a support infrastructure is a good thing. The one thing this design will do, and do very well, is to create a multi-service purchasing and support system advantage. The majority of the cost of an aviation weapon is the pieces-parts that keep it flying. Those fees get paid LONG after the initial investment. With one highly common set of parts, all three services (Air Force, Navy, Marines) get to all buy the same parts - making it cheaper by far to maintain and operate many years into the future. Furthermore, with some exceptions, doing the testing and development on upgrades and parts replacements will also be cheaper for the life of the plane.
Sure, you give up performance. But for the forseeable future, we are not going to really need (for example) a Mach 3 fighter. So why pay for one, that can't do anything else?
Since this plane is autonomous, and flies a preprogrammed mission based on intelligence and satellite data, the chances are actually much lower of a real-time mistake. Most of the friendly fire deaths in recent combat have been caused by a pilot error in the heat of combat - "Gee, that looks like an Iraqi tank." Forget it - this won't happen in a preprogrammed mission.
Sure, you will always have bad targeting, but you're largely reducing the ability of ONE person's incorrect decision to make someone's day really, really bad. Instead, you've got quite a few eyes looking at the targeting data, along with plenty of direct access to information about where your troops actually are.
So in my opinion, this thing will end up killing FEWER friendly troops than ever before.
Note the word AUTONOMOUS.
This thing won't require a pilot for every little detail of its flight. If you change your mind about something, you tell the computer, LAND AT HOME BASE. Push the "Commit" button. Wait half an hour, and the thing lands and parks itself at the ramp.
If you think this is a pipe dream, they've already done it - repeatably, and reliably, with the Global Hawk - which has seen combat in Afghanistan. The plane is preprogrammed (by an engineer, NOT a pilot), and taxis out, takes off, flies its mission, returns to base, and taxis back to the ramp - without a single additional real-time command. (GPS is a wonderful thing...)
The only difference here is that this thing will be also able to drop bombs.
So, YES, it will save pilot training costs. Hugely. One person would be able to command many of these things - even at the same time. If the computer cannot handle the problem by itself, it probably cannot be handled by a real-time pilot either.
In case you didn't read the article, here's the essential quote:
In a typical mission scenario, multiple UCAVs will be equipped with preprogrammed objectives and preliminary targeting information from ground-based mission planners. Operations can then be carried out autonomously, but can also be managed interactively or revised en route by UCAV controllers should new objectives or targeting information dictate.
Anyone who's ever been in a secure facility run by a halfway competent government or any large corporation knows that there are several countermeasures already in place. Many of them were designed for other reasons but serve the same purpose. For example, at one secure computing facility I've visited, the ENTIRE shell of the building's secure area is entirely surrounded by a Faraday cage of solid metal 1/8" thick. Even the floor and ceiling are covered. Seams are bolted shut. Wires and pipes run thru special conduits that trap EM energy. Doorways have metal-finger contacts and vault-style closing mechanisms. I doubt you'd get much diffused light through those measures. Also, several slightly less secure conference rooms I've seen included double blinds on the windows, including metal venitian blinds and thick pull drapes. Again, pretty light resistant. Now, those measures are designed for things like Tempest resistance (the metal Faraday cage) and preventing optical snooping (deadening the sound hitting the glass, thus preventing using an IR laser to bounce a reflection off the window, in an attempt to reconstruct the sound inside the room). But any company that is serious about security already takes great care to protect that information and wouldn't be susceptible to this problem.
The one thing it does reemphasize is that simply sitting with your back to the wall isn't enough. Well, thanks to Tempest and LED blinking and insecure wireless and hosts of other issues, we already knew that.
Frankly, the one surprising thing about this article is that it made it into the mainstream media. I'm quite surprised that the British government, or whatever home country, didn't consider this research highly classified and quickly squelch its publication.
After hunting around for a reasonably-priced reading spotlight to mount in the minivan for my kids to read after dark, I couldn't find anything that was (1) bright and clear at low wattage (2) priced under $100US (3) small enough to hide in the trimwork. Then putzing around Radio Shack one day, I saw the rack of white LEDs, and decided to give them a whirl.
I bought 6 WLEDs for about $30, a couple 100-ohm resistors and 1K trimmer pots for current limiting and dimming, and went home. Half an hour and a few solder joints later, I had mounted the 6 LEDs shining thru holes in my overhead panel, pointed at my steering wheel area (hey, first I helped MYSELF, not the kids). I found that I could run three LEDs, with a voltage drop of about 3.5V each, in series with the fixed 100 ohm resistor and a trimmer pot. So two sets in parallel worked well. I couldn't wait until nighttime.
After dark, out to the van I went. Switch on - WOW.
First impression - the color was all wrong. Until I realized that I'm so used to yellow light that pure white was almost distracting. But the light was BRIGHT and very crisp. From about 18 inches from LEDs to reading material, with only 6 LEDs, I had more light than with the original dome light 20 inches away, and the color was perfect - I could enjoy reading material with photos, without straining to see the colors. The pool of light was about 15 inches across. The LEDs I used are rated at 30deg beam spread (to the point of half brightness) so that seemed about right for six lights pointed a bit apart from each other. Best of all, unlike a dome lamp, there was NO spillover light to the rest of the interior - with the light on I could still easily see out the front to drive. Don't try that for long with a glaring dome lamp.
One other thing was worth noting - there were faint yellow/blue bands in the pool of light, noticable only when looking at a large mostly blank page. This is probably due to the blue LED/yellow phosphor combination used to make white light.
The biggest problem was cost. At Radio Shack prices of $4.99 each, I couldn't affort enough LEDs to do the other five seating locations. But it was still far cheaper than a quality aircraft-style reading lamp, and just as bright. If I wanted more brightness, I can easily add more LEDs.
Check out this link - http://www.theledlight.com - for some really cool ideas, parts, kits, assembled lamps, all based on LED technology. Really cool, and a LOT cheaper for the bare LEDs than Radio Shack. About $2.50 or less each.
Soon I'm going to order some bulk WLEDs from them - and light up the rest of the vehicle interior.
Actually they DO blow under the wing. I've seen footage of it lifting off and flying. Also a WIG vehicle was demonstrated on the river near where I work, and it too had front-mounted propulsion (props instead of jets, for this small version) with exactly the same purpose. The props were pivoted, rather like a V-22 engine pod.
Actually a WIG has LOUSY glide ratio.
First off, IAAAE - I am an Aero Engineer. Glide ratio is largely a function of the wing's efficiency - and that is almost entirely a function of the ratio of wingspan to wing "chord" - in otherwords, the ratio of width to length of the wing. (Ever wonder why a sailplane has such long thin wings?) But to get a good ground effect, you need a short stubby wing, not a long thin one - you need a longer surface to "trap" the cushion of air underneath. So wing efficiency and ground effect are actually mutually exclusive. That's the main reason that you cannot get far off the ground in a WIG vehicle. The ONLY reason it gets up is the ground effect - you simply don't have enough lift otherwise. (You can zoom for brief distances, but there is so much drag due to the lousy efficiency that you cannot sustain high flight.)
So if you remember that glide ratio is related to wing efficiency, and that wing efficiency is awful in a WIG, you get a lousy glide ratio in these things.
But as "mpe" mentions, you can easily settle down on the water and slow down to become a boat.
One other interesting fact about these things is worth mentioning. If you see the pics of the Russian monster WIG (sometimes called the "Caspian Sea Monster", due to its extreme size), you'll notice the engines at the FRONT, up high on a winglike structure. Why? Well, to get "airborne", you have to get up to speed. But water drag is so high, and the plane is so big, that they cannot simply accelerate up to flying speed. So the only way to get enough air under the wings to get out of the water is to blow it directly there - so they mount the engines in front of the wing, so that the airstream can be directed under the wing to boost the plane off the water at a relatively low speed - after which they can start really accelerating.
... its existing laws about regulated frequencies, and when it does, it does so selectively. I have a friend who lives in a huge planned housing development with acre-sized lots. Dave's neighbor runs a ham-style system with a huge antenna, and spends hours a day chatting with remote buddies. The interference from the system wreaks havoc on the entire neighborhood telephone, cable, and broadcast systems. Landline (even corded, not to mention cordless) telephones frequently are unusuable because of the interference. But despite repeated calls to the FCC from Dave and many of his neighbors, nothing is ever done. (Seems like a good use for some SEMTEX or a hand grenade.)
The point is, the FCC may have pretty strict laws about interference. And it may spent lots of bucks and time on Big Industry. But in my experience, the FCC has no interest in enforcing the laws for Mr. Small Guy - that is, unless Mr. Small Guy does something that gets Big Industry mad.
... why is a laser pointer more useful for directional things than a simple flashlight? After all, an incandescent flashlight is simply an omnidirectional light source with a broad frequency range, roughly focused with a (usually cheap) parabolic reflector. Why could a flashlight not produce as potent and well-focused beam of light with the same colimating lens? After all, you can build a very cheap arc lamp that puts out thousands of watts of light. If you could focus THAT on a small spot, it would be as hot as the arc that produced it in the first place. So what's the problem with doing that?
(This is a serious question. I'd love to hear the answer from a qualified physics type. I'm even willing to burn a karma point to show this at a 2 rating, so I stand a chance of getting a real answer.)
I'm just guessing, but it's probably because the monochromatic nature of most laser pointers means that ALL the light focuses the same thru the collimating lens. This is of course because different frequencies of light have different refraction angles thru a lens. Therefore, with a broad-spectrum source like a light bulb, you cannot sharply focus the beam, because each frequency focuses at a different place. As I write this, it occurs to me that's why a flashlight uses a parabolic reflector - because reflection is not affected by wavelenght like refraction is. But with a parabolic lens, the fully parallel beam can never be smaller than the diameter of the lens.