I do a bunch, depending on circumstances. I've lived in three continents and have visited five. The last time out of the States on my old passport was about 5 years ago, but I just got a job where I'll be traveling to Asia about three times a year.
I've been tracking this for a while, so I waited to make sure I got one of the last non-RFID passports. It's valid for 10 years, and hopefully people will have solved the privacy problem by then. Hopefully.
Interesting list, but I don't think it equates with productivity. Besides pure labor, you can build wealth with equity. If I had a million dollars in the bank, I could easily make $20k/year just sitting on my butt - just about what an average New Zealander produces in a year. But, by most people standards, the Kiwi is going to be considered more productive than me with my bedsores.
You could argue that the money in the bank is a function of productivity, but if I spend that all and keep up my same level of loafing, my income will drop to zero -- but I would be hard to argue it was possible to become any less productive than I was already.
People who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters could go to prison for up to three years
Hackers and industry insiders who distribute music, movies or other copyrighted works before their official release date also face stiffened penalties under the bill.
Well, I hope the industry insiders face a stiffer penalty than three years in prison -- they make much better, more watch-able copies, so the damage is much worse.
But, somehow, I don't think the industry will want such stiff penalties for their own people. And, if so, why the long sentence for taping in a theater? Hopefully someone will eventually realize that jail time is not appropriate & copyright should be kept a civil matter.
It's more like a fingerprint... find a suspect through the usual methods, and the get a search warrant for his printer. If the two samples match, you can build a case on some strong evidence.
It's not a magic bullet, just another tool for law enforcement.
Electric motors have much, much larger torque bands than combustion engines. They also provide power at 0 RPM, allowing the removal of a clutch / slushbox.
You could install a transmission (because the torque curve isn't totally flat), but it wouldn't get you that much in terms of extra acceleration at speed. And, since most electric car manufacturers are concentrating on long-range, they wouldn't dare take the efficency loss from extra mechanical systems in the driveline (never mind the extra weight, too).
Combustion engines are limited in rev speed by the recpricating parts - valves, pistons, cam followers. Electric motors don't have any recpricating parts - the only limitations are bearings and winding inductance. At higher speeds, the inductance limits how much current can be fed in to the motor -- too fast, and you'll get zero power in, and thus, zero power out. This can be counteracted with either more voltage (that's partly why electric cars run off of high voltage), or by putting a lot of low-inductance coils in parallel. Both solutions are easier and more efficient than a transmission.
I found this neat company that made a system that controlled the thickness of sheet metal was it was being manufacturered. Kinda interesting, I thought... I could apply DSP algorithms and statistics to the problem. Low pass filter, etc...
The factory tour went something like this: ---- The core technology of the company was a non-contact system that used radiation to penetrate the steel and measure its thickness. Are you cool with radiation and wearing the exposure badge? Sure, not planning on any kids for a while...
Now, this steel is pretty hot, so you've got to be careful not to touch it, ok? Sure.
It's also relatively thin and the edges aren't the smoothest -- so, it's sharp. But it's steel, so it's still heavy. You wouldn't want to get any fingers you're particularily attached to near it. Uh, ok.
And, it's moving out the mill at a fairly fast speed. Radioactive, Semi-molten, sharp and fast. Still ok? uh, yeah, sure.
Finally, for some ungodly reason, it is dripping with acid. We don't know why; that's just part of the manufacturing. That's partly why we go with a non-contact measurement.
Lastly, even though your resume is excellent, we're going to put you on the support team for at least a year. It's low pay, but there's lots of overtime and travel benefits. You'll go to all sorts of exotic mill towns. ----
And that, my friends, is why I took the rocket-scientist job instead.
The point of paper trails is that you keep them -- if there are any questions later, you count those by hand and see if the machine is correct. And, like other have said, you can't tell if the code running on machines is actually the publicly-available source you can view (even if you compile it yourself on the machine before you vote - the compiler could be tainted)
I'd really expect them to rate it on the actual output - otherwise it would be meaningless. LCDs have different fill factors, and other technologies (CRT, DLP, 3 LCDs, LCOS) have very different efficiencies.
I'd also expect to be able to put a light meter on the screen and measure the cd/m^2 and get the same value as specified in the datasheet.
I guess the only way to tell would be to put the two projectors side-by-side.
It looks like the 3500 lumens is part of the projector spec -- but they are still missing something major. LCDs use polarized light, so, at most, they'll transmit half of incoming (unpolarized) light. I'd rate this projector at 1750 lumens, max. That number puts it in the company of a lot of other projectors.
I know my tivo records a lot of junk. Part of that comes from a household of people with different tastes, and also its poor suggestions (I like futurama, a cartoon, so therefore I should like Lizzie McGuire). I delete lots of it without watching. I'd think that would skew the results. Also, there are some shows it'll record because someone paid them to make sure it was available to me... that would skew the results majorly.
I think you nailed it with the last paragraph - good insight. That's how we used it at the office. I keep thinking of my dad as an example because these things would fit him more. He would like a cheap fax/copier that is easy to use. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't be interested in the combo. And as far as color copies goes, the price/performance combo of these just rocks.
I was going to say that the combo takes less desk space, but then you mentioned how you put your scanner out of the way when not in use. My dad would want it readily accessible because a copier/fax is more useful if it doesn't require setup (including booting up the computer). He's willing to trade a lot for the convenience.
Ok, I'll stand up for multifunction devices. I don't own one, but I've used them and can see their use.
Yes, they are more expensive and may be less compatible, but they have their upside: they are smaller (adding a scanner to a printer doesn't add any additional desk space), they can operate without a computer (the "color copy" button on the one at work is great), and they are supposed to be easier to install (One driver instead of three. One customer support line instead of three.). Of course, if the software sucks, you're just as stuck as with sucky software from an individual device, but now it's harder to replace the hardware.
Postscript is cool, but my dad doesn't really care about that. He's not even much of a quality/speed person - just ease of use.
Since engadget is slow now (wonder why!), here's the text from the above link:
We're the first to admit playing a "movie" on an iPod Photo by exporting the sound, and thousands of frames is as silly as it sounds, so ludicrous that we had to do a how-to on it. Now things are getting toally wacky, and already a video has turned up of someone watching a video on their iRiver H320 (an MP3 player which just recently acquired the ability to playback video clips) of us "watching" the new Star Wars trailer on our iPod Photo. It's getting mighty recursive in here.
Microsoft could always have the google queries come from the user's computer, and integrate the results on the user's computer before displaying it. This would be impossible to block with IP address, but may be blockable with some sort of query heuristic. I'd think this could be done with Java or ActiveX pretty easily (I'm more of an embedded programmer...)
I don't agree. Nick Foster won an Academy Award for the water in Antz. article I agree with your statement on making it fit the feel of the rest of the movie. Water may be easy to model with FMA, but it'll take a lot of processing power. And I think fire is a lot harder -- we're still working on models for scientific simulation. I've rendered fractal clouds, and, sorry, they don't look too hot. You'd need a weather model, and then you'd need to make it fast.
Good point. I was referring to only pure-CG movies where, if it can't be realistically rendered by a computer, it'll look bad and won't be done. Star Wars and the Matrix had great effects, but they used a lot of non-CG - multiple cameras, wires, acrobatics, etc. Wet hair would be done the old fashion way (a can of water and an actor), while only the stuff that was better done by CG (light sabres) would use it.
Toy Story lacked some stuff, but the story worked around it - people, hair, and water were all missing because they're really hard to render. (Still one of my favorite movies, though)
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I do a bunch, depending on circumstances. I've lived in three continents and have visited five. The last time out of the States on my old passport was about 5 years ago, but I just got a job where I'll be traveling to Asia about three times a year.
I've been tracking this for a while, so I waited to make sure I got one of the last non-RFID passports. It's valid for 10 years, and hopefully people will have solved the privacy problem by then. Hopefully.
Those are good measures, but don't forget the third: maximum performance regardless of anything else.
Sometimes, your time is the most important thing and only a big hammer will satisfy.
Interesting list, but I don't think it equates with productivity. Besides pure labor, you can build wealth with equity. If I had a million dollars in the bank, I could easily make $20k/year just sitting on my butt - just about what an average New Zealander produces in a year. But, by most people standards, the Kiwi is going to be considered more productive than me with my bedsores.
You could argue that the money in the bank is a function of productivity, but if I spend that all and keep up my same level of loafing, my income will drop to zero -- but I would be hard to argue it was possible to become any less productive than I was already.
I'll second that. A don't forget, an ipod can store more than just music.
(and, yes, I've dropped over $4k on music over the last 15 years, and don't consider myself much of a music collector)
People who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters could go to prison for up to three years
Hackers and industry insiders who distribute music, movies or other copyrighted works before their official release date also face stiffened penalties under the bill.
Well, I hope the industry insiders face a stiffer penalty than three years in prison -- they make much better, more watch-able copies, so the damage is much worse.
But, somehow, I don't think the industry will want such stiff penalties for their own people. And, if so, why the long sentence for taping in a theater? Hopefully someone will eventually realize that jail time is not appropriate & copyright should be kept a civil matter.
It's more like a fingerprint... find a suspect through the usual methods, and the get a search warrant for his printer. If the two samples match, you can build a case on some strong evidence.
It's not a magic bullet, just another tool for law enforcement.
It's fine until they link the printer serial number to a actual person...
I guess I shouldn't have printed out a copy of the warranty registration card to send in.
Electric motors have much, much larger torque bands than combustion engines. They also provide power at 0 RPM, allowing the removal of a clutch / slushbox.
You could install a transmission (because the torque curve isn't totally flat), but it wouldn't get you that much in terms of extra acceleration at speed. And, since most electric car manufacturers are concentrating on long-range, they wouldn't dare take the efficency loss from extra mechanical systems in the driveline (never mind the extra weight, too).
Combustion engines are limited in rev speed by the recpricating parts - valves, pistons, cam followers. Electric motors don't have any recpricating parts - the only limitations are bearings and winding inductance. At higher speeds, the inductance limits how much current can be fed in to the motor -- too fast, and you'll get zero power in, and thus, zero power out. This can be counteracted with either more voltage (that's partly why electric cars run off of high voltage), or by putting a lot of low-inductance coils in parallel. Both solutions are easier and more efficient than a transmission.
I found this neat company that made a system that controlled the thickness of sheet metal was it was being manufacturered. Kinda interesting, I thought... I could apply DSP algorithms and statistics to the problem. Low pass filter, etc...
The factory tour went something like this:
----
The core technology of the company was a non-contact system that used radiation to penetrate the steel and measure its thickness. Are you cool with radiation and wearing the exposure badge? Sure, not planning on any kids for a while...
Now, this steel is pretty hot, so you've got to be careful not to touch it, ok? Sure.
It's also relatively thin and the edges aren't the smoothest -- so, it's sharp. But it's steel, so it's still heavy. You wouldn't want to get any fingers you're particularily attached to near it. Uh, ok.
And, it's moving out the mill at a fairly fast speed. Radioactive, Semi-molten, sharp and fast. Still ok? uh, yeah, sure.
Finally, for some ungodly reason, it is dripping with acid. We don't know why; that's just part of the manufacturing. That's partly why we go with a non-contact measurement.
Lastly, even though your resume is excellent, we're going to put you on the support team for at least a year. It's low pay, but there's lots of overtime and travel benefits. You'll go to all sorts of exotic mill towns.
----
And that, my friends, is why I took the rocket-scientist job instead.
The point of paper trails is that you keep them -- if there are any questions later, you count those by hand and see if the machine is correct. And, like other have said, you can't tell if the code running on machines is actually the publicly-available source you can view (even if you compile it yourself on the machine before you vote - the compiler could be tainted)
Yep, I mean Antz. There's a scene where the colony is flooded with water. Here's one picture, but it doesn't really show the flood sequence.
Unless I'm forgetting this movie (which the plot is helping me do)...
a little math...
344 million km / (0.3 million km/sec) = 1147 seconds travel time
1147 seconds * 30 megabits/sec peak rate = 4.3 Gigabytes in transit at any instant.
I'd really expect them to rate it on the actual output - otherwise it would be meaningless. LCDs have different fill factors, and other technologies (CRT, DLP, 3 LCDs, LCOS) have very different efficiencies.
I'd also expect to be able to put a light meter on the screen and measure the cd/m^2 and get the same value as specified in the datasheet.
I guess the only way to tell would be to put the two projectors side-by-side.
Ah, good point! 500 lumens.
It looks like the 3500 lumens is part of the projector spec -- but they are still missing something major. LCDs use polarized light, so, at most, they'll transmit half of incoming (unpolarized) light. I'd rate this projector at 1750 lumens, max. That number puts it in the company of a lot of other projectors.
I know my tivo records a lot of junk. Part of that comes from a household of people with different tastes, and also its poor suggestions (I like futurama, a cartoon, so therefore I should like Lizzie McGuire). I delete lots of it without watching. I'd think that would skew the results. Also, there are some shows it'll record because someone paid them to make sure it was available to me... that would skew the results majorly.
I think you nailed it with the last paragraph - good insight. That's how we used it at the office. I keep thinking of my dad as an example because these things would fit him more. He would like a cheap fax/copier that is easy to use. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't be interested in the combo. And as far as color copies goes, the price/performance combo of these just rocks.
I was going to say that the combo takes less desk space, but then you mentioned how you put your scanner out of the way when not in use. My dad would want it readily accessible because a copier/fax is more useful if it doesn't require setup (including booting up the computer). He's willing to trade a lot for the convenience.
Ok, I'll stand up for multifunction devices. I don't own one, but I've used them and can see their use.
Yes, they are more expensive and may be less compatible, but they have their upside: they are smaller (adding a scanner to a printer doesn't add any additional desk space), they can operate without a computer (the "color copy" button on the one at work is great), and they are supposed to be easier to install (One driver instead of three. One customer support line instead of three.). Of course, if the software sucks, you're just as stuck as with sucky software from an individual device, but now it's harder to replace the hardware.
Postscript is cool, but my dad doesn't really care about that. He's not even much of a quality/speed person - just ease of use.
Well, that explains the quote from Bush's debate:
BUSH: Thanks. I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft.
Here's a video of an iRiver playing a movie of an iPod photo trying to play a movie
Since engadget is slow now (wonder why!), here's the text from the above link:
We're the first to admit playing a "movie" on an iPod Photo by exporting the sound, and thousands of frames is as silly as it sounds, so ludicrous that we had to do a how-to on it. Now things are getting toally wacky, and already a video has turned up of someone watching a video on their iRiver H320 (an MP3 player which just recently acquired the ability to playback video clips) of us "watching" the new Star Wars trailer on our iPod Photo. It's getting mighty recursive in here.
Read
Microsoft could always have the google queries come from the user's computer, and integrate the results on the user's computer before displaying it. This would be impossible to block with IP address, but may be blockable with some sort of query heuristic. I'd think this could be done with Java or ActiveX pretty easily (I'm more of an embedded programmer...)
thanks! ..I didn't read the article close enough :-(
I don't agree. Nick Foster won an Academy Award for the water in Antz. article I agree with your statement on making it fit the feel of the rest of the movie. Water may be easy to model with FMA, but it'll take a lot of processing power. And I think fire is a lot harder -- we're still working on models for scientific simulation. I've rendered fractal clouds, and, sorry, they don't look too hot. You'd need a weather model, and then you'd need to make it fast.
Good point. I was referring to only pure-CG movies where, if it can't be realistically rendered by a computer, it'll look bad and won't be done. Star Wars and the Matrix had great effects, but they used a lot of non-CG - multiple cameras, wires, acrobatics, etc. Wet hair would be done the old fashion way (a can of water and an actor), while only the stuff that was better done by CG (light sabres) would use it.
Toy Story lacked some stuff, but the story worked around it - people, hair, and water were all missing because they're really hard to render. (Still one of my favorite movies, though)