Do I actually have to watch them or can I just let them run and pretend I'm paying attention?
No, you have to watch them. It comes with little robot arms that grasp your eyelids and keep them open, then it sprays you with CS spray if you don't keep your attention on the screen.
There's more to it than that. Satellite delays would account for about 0.3s, but delays are also introduced by encoding (since encoders need to "read ahead" to encode certain types of frames) and decoding (same reason). Other stuff at the TV station introduces delays - on the BBC you'll see a one-frame stutter whenever a live digital video effect is about to occur (shrinking the credits to show a promo, for example).
Yet more delays are introduced for all kinds of technical reasons. One factor is that here in the UK we have a lot of "regions" - minor variations of channels which mostly show the same thing but branch off to show regional news and such. If these were all broadcast in sync, over satellite, any moments requiring high bitrates would suffer, because only the same overall amount of bandwidth would be available. If you stagger the regions, though, so each is out of sync but within a few seconds, these bumps can be smoothed out.
What should a driverless car with one rider do if it is faced with the choice of swerving off the road into a tree or hitting a crowd of 10 pedestrians?
First of all, I'm having a really hard time imagining even a remotely plausible scenario in which those would be the only two possible options. Has anything even vaguely similar ever actually happened in the real world (that didn't involve the driver driving like an idiot in the first place).
Secondly, it seems to me that even a remotely intelligent AI would be unlikely to get itself in such a quandary in the first place.
Still, if we're going to play the game, I say head for the tree. The pedestrians didn't choose to submit the preservation of their lives to an AI, so even if there's just one (and somehow all other directions are equally deadly), risk the driver instead of the pedestrian. In almost all cases they'll be far more likely to survive.
and of course, the individual channels clearly run on variously different clocks than comcast does, as trying to DVR programs on different networks proves.
More likely they run on the same clock, but screw around with their scheduling a little bit to try to make you miss the beginning of a rival show on another network.
Facebook Is Using Your Phone's Location To Suggest New Friends
Facebook isn't using my phone to do anything. These shitty clickbait headlines are getting everywhere. Some of us are capable of being interested in things without having to have them directly linked to our own personal wellbeing.
MS has some deep pockets. Their given reason makes no sense. They could outspend any litigant.
Of course it makes sense. They think it's going to cost them less. Where would the sense be in spending millions if the case can be put away for thousands?
Just because someone has billions, doesn't mean it "makes no sense" for them to avoid spending millions.
Here's a tip if you ever find yourself watching a 24 box set.
1) Watch the first episode. 2) Watch all the "previously on 24" bits from the 3rd episode to the penultimate episode (optional: watch the 12th and 13th episodes in full. There's usually a bigger cliffhanger or a nuclear bomb explodes or something) 3) Watch the last episode.
The average American watches three hours of TV each day, and researchers have found that most people already prefer listening to accelerated speech.
They might have preferred it for the 1 minute they spent listening to it with the researcher. I mean, it's obvious, innit - faster is better!
But then people also "prefer" loud music over quieter music, which is why we have highly compressed music thanks to the loudness war.
I watched a few episodes of Smallville at 1.25x to save time. Then I thought: if I'm so unimpressed by it that I can't be bothered to sit down and watch it at the speed it's meant to be watched, maybe it's just not that good enough to watch at all.
If your time is that precious, just look a movie up on moviepooper and be done with it.
Do we really need it anymore now that we have NTP [ntp.org] running on most of our smartphones, computers, etc.?
I've got something running on my computer (Windows 7) but I have no idea what "on a regular basis" means when it comes to updating. Does it check once an hour? Once a day? Once a week? No idea. I forced an update just now and it was 45 seconds out.
I think I'll go and install NTP... if I can find a decent build for Windows.
When I were a lad, you could set your watch to the clock that they broadcast on BBC One before the news started. Can't do that now, thanks to digital TV and statistical multiplexing.
Slashdot Mirror
he will quit me
I wish I knew how to quit you.
Not the way I read it. If you use something which is comercially available, it must be official merchandise.
If what you're using isn't commercially available - e.g., you made it yourself - then it's fine.
Who wants to browse the web visually?
Uh... how do you do it?
...stuff that literally does not matter in any way at all.
DMCA Notices Remove 8,268 Projects On Github In 2015
I think the real news is that they have a time machine.
Do I actually have to watch them or can I just let them run and pretend I'm paying attention?
No, you have to watch them. It comes with little robot arms that grasp your eyelids and keep them open, then it sprays you with CS spray if you don't keep your attention on the screen.
Humans can't even seem to work with other humans on some problems.
The only way to make this impossible is to have a sufficient number of checkpoint personnel
At which point the security personnel themselves become a crowd...
There's more to it than that. Satellite delays would account for about 0.3s, but delays are also introduced by encoding (since encoders need to "read ahead" to encode certain types of frames) and decoding (same reason). Other stuff at the TV station introduces delays - on the BBC you'll see a one-frame stutter whenever a live digital video effect is about to occur (shrinking the credits to show a promo, for example).
Yet more delays are introduced for all kinds of technical reasons. One factor is that here in the UK we have a lot of "regions" - minor variations of channels which mostly show the same thing but branch off to show regional news and such. If these were all broadcast in sync, over satellite, any moments requiring high bitrates would suffer, because only the same overall amount of bandwidth would be available. If you stagger the regions, though, so each is out of sync but within a few seconds, these bumps can be smoothed out.
What should a driverless car with one rider do if it is faced with the choice of swerving off the road into a tree or hitting a crowd of 10 pedestrians?
First of all, I'm having a really hard time imagining even a remotely plausible scenario in which those would be the only two possible options. Has anything even vaguely similar ever actually happened in the real world (that didn't involve the driver driving like an idiot in the first place).
Secondly, it seems to me that even a remotely intelligent AI would be unlikely to get itself in such a quandary in the first place.
Still, if we're going to play the game, I say head for the tree. The pedestrians didn't choose to submit the preservation of their lives to an AI, so even if there's just one (and somehow all other directions are equally deadly), risk the driver instead of the pedestrian. In almost all cases they'll be far more likely to survive.
My comments regarding the shittiness of the headline would still stand even if I did have Facebook on my phone.
Google Launches 'Project Bloks' Toys To Teach Kids To Code
Good job they're not trying to teach kids to spell.
Presumably, once he leaves office, the chances of Snowden being pardoned by Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump are miniscule.
And what makes the chances of Snowden being pardoned by Obama non-miniscule?
and of course, the individual channels clearly run on variously different clocks than comcast does, as trying to DVR programs on different networks proves.
More likely they run on the same clock, but screw around with their scheduling a little bit to try to make you miss the beginning of a rival show on another network.
Facebook Is Using Your Phone's Location To Suggest New Friends
Facebook isn't using my phone to do anything. These shitty clickbait headlines are getting everywhere. Some of us are capable of being interested in things without having to have them directly linked to our own personal wellbeing.
You -
Done. Fuck clickbait. Humanity is not a single homogenous mass. We are all individuals (except that guy).
MS has some deep pockets. Their given reason makes no sense. They could outspend any litigant.
Of course it makes sense. They think it's going to cost them less. Where would the sense be in spending millions if the case can be put away for thousands?
Just because someone has billions, doesn't mean it "makes no sense" for them to avoid spending millions.
Here's a tip if you ever find yourself watching a 24 box set.
1) Watch the first episode.
2) Watch all the "previously on 24" bits from the 3rd episode to the penultimate episode (optional: watch the 12th and 13th episodes in full. There's usually a bigger cliffhanger or a nuclear bomb explodes or something)
3) Watch the last episode.
Done in about a 10th of the time!
The average American watches three hours of TV each day, and researchers have found that most people already prefer listening to accelerated speech.
They might have preferred it for the 1 minute they spent listening to it with the researcher. I mean, it's obvious, innit - faster is better!
But then people also "prefer" loud music over quieter music, which is why we have highly compressed music thanks to the loudness war.
I watched a few episodes of Smallville at 1.25x to save time. Then I thought: if I'm so unimpressed by it that I can't be bothered to sit down and watch it at the speed it's meant to be watched, maybe it's just not that good enough to watch at all.
If your time is that precious, just look a movie up on moviepooper and be done with it.
Do we really need it anymore now that we have NTP [ntp.org] running on most of our smartphones, computers, etc.?
I've got something running on my computer (Windows 7) but I have no idea what "on a regular basis" means when it comes to updating. Does it check once an hour? Once a day? Once a week? No idea. I forced an update just now and it was 45 seconds out.
I think I'll go and install NTP... if I can find a decent build for Windows.
When I were a lad, you could set your watch to the clock that they broadcast on BBC One before the news started. Can't do that now, thanks to digital TV and statistical multiplexing.
Pulling on the green thing will no longer be sufficient.
I may make those my last words just to confuse people.
An ineffective PR team. It didn't generate enough buzz the first time round so they're trying the same schtick again.
Disabled access is a Dalek conspiracy.
Do you instantly recall what every company that gets mentioned in a Slashdot headline does?
Maybe you do. But not everyone does.
Us pedants want to know.
I believe you meant to say "we pedants."