Actually, given a no-focus digital camera with enough megapixels, most certainly a plate can be read automatically by computer at 300 feet. The photons are there- it's just a matter of detecting them with enough resolution to make OCR possible.
OK, I would have never of guessed that this was ever possible. I mean, spy planes can read a book on the ground from the air, but a camera taking a picture of a license plate and feeding it to an OCR at 300 feet, this is incredible. Being that the picture and OCR trick needs direct line of sight, and it requires extra equipment to aid the "viewee" (I did say naked eye, which is primarily how license plates are used today), I must bring up my original question.
Would RFID tags superseed visual tags? I see nothing that the visually oriented tags would add over an RFID one except for their ugliness.
This also gives the government (or anyone else who can hack into their systems) the ability to locate your car at any point in time.
Yes, the article did clearly state that these RFID tag readers were located on satelites with GPS info as well.
Err, no it didn't. It said that the plates could be read up to 300 feet (100m) away. Toll systems already have this info, plus the helicoptors on the news here in the US have no problem locating and following cars.
Hmm, being that I don't think that a license plate can be read at 300 feet by the naked eye, does this mean that the traditional plates are now obsolete? (Or are they going to stay with us like the Cap Lock key?).
The editors, reviewers, and authors are all unpaid
I believe that editors get paid quite well, and they earn every penny, but yes, reviewers and authors are unpaid, it comes with the job of being a scientist.
... the authors want the widest, freest distribution possible... Why on earth do we still give journals the right to act as gatekeepers for our information, when they give us almost nothing (basically just a referral service) in return
Nothing is stopping scientists from simply throwing their articles on a website somewhere. I can't think of a wider more free distribution method.
The reason that we give journals the right to act as gatekeepers is because we want them to do it. A scientist knows that there are journals that have higher respect in a field, and it looks good on scientists' vitas to have publications in peer reviewed journals, especially the more respected ones. The peer review is essential, and that is what costs money. Any bozo can throw something on a website. Journals have very strict standards for the format of the paper, and the methods used in the science. As far as who pays? Someone is paying the scientist and funding the research. I would guess that any costs associated with publishing the research is much less than 1% of research itself.
We don't need no education. I still don't understand why common desktop environments don't show common stuff like cpu utilization & network utilization.
Most people when their computer is owned complain that it "seems slower than it used to", but they have nothing in their tray or menu system that says "Look asshole, your cpu has been at 100% utilization for the past 3 weeks. Are you a scientist running massively long calculations on your desktop and have no real computer to use or is something really, really wrong with your computer?".
Viri and spam agents are resource intensive. Every owned box that I've seen I could either look at how slow it was, even with just a screen saver, or one time I found a coworker had a spam relay on his box, and I could hear the harddrive going nuts. He thought it was "busy". After clamping down on sendmail, the box became very quiet.
I see this as the only education people need. Maybe then people will start complaining about flash animations because they get associated with viri. Maybe.
simply make a distinction between "I am looking to buy something" searches vs "I am looking for information about something".
They are cleary different kinds of searches, and I do both of them, yet I get the same results for both kinds of searches. With the exception for froogle, which is definitely a step in the right direction, but not quite there.
Although the interface has gotten a little better on altavista (remember them??), but searches like: for used condoms do not make sense for retail stores at all. I'm sorry guys, there isn't a market for used condoms, but if there were I'm sure someone would be more than willing to supply the demand.
The google search for used condoms is a little better, but the advertising links on the right hand side does have:
Used Anything -Dirt Cheap at Gov't & Police Auctions Near You Seized, Surplus Property. Hot Deals www.GovernmentAuctions.org
And please do not take a tangent on "used condoms", its just a sick memorable example.
This is the 2nd person that has tried to rationalize the price of phone service/features based on service and features. Phones always have been, and I guess they always will be a scam so long as people keep acting confused about the prices and _paying them anyway_.
At least here in the US, basic phone service is about the price of the fees and taxes to use the service. Every phone company has "the lowest prices", but when you get the bill its always the same or more than what you were paying before. It used to be land line and long distance scams, now its cell phones. I think the phone companies are laughing it all the way to the bank because they appear to like having short term customers so that they can keep raising the prices or hiding the prices in other places on your bill when your too busy trying to figure out how the new cheaper service costs the same or more than your previous service.
I own one (wireless) phone that is paid for by my work. I refuse to ever play this game ever again. When I can have internet access to everywhere in the world for $15 -> $20 a month with no hidden fees, I refuse to pay a penny more than this for voice service.
It's necessary for whenever you want to type in all-caps without holding shift the whole time.
That is a software issue not a hardware one. Caps lock have nothing to do with >>99.9% of computing, and 99.9% of the time it is invoked accidentally, and it has negative effects on the users computing experience. The password entry should never be in all caps, neither should commandline interfaces, most editors (emacs, vi, etc) dont make sense when cap locks is enabled, and for some reason, all caps is difficult to read, and it LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE IS YELLING AT YOU!!!
I always disable it in windows, my mac, linux, etc. Its one of the 1st things I do when I get a new computer. Let the damn thing be emulated in software if its needed.
Which brings up the fact that there are new laws in CA and I guess other states/countries or whatever that explictly say somthing to the affect that "Its against the law to break the copyright law with a camcorder in a movie theater" or the equivalent in legal speak. I'm sure I'm with most/.ers being against very silly specific laws like this, especially when there are broader laws that already exist and cover the crime.
I also think that if I were the MPAA I would go after the people distributing the copies in black market vs trying to get them in the theater, since a) many screeners and whatnot are leaked from studios anyway and do not use camcorders, and b) that is where the $$$ is and c) there are more people selling copies vs recording copies and when you put heat on the sellers then they wont sell and then people wont record.
Plus, it is an easier conviction with existing laws to go after the sellers when they have X numbers of blatently illegal copies of a movie vs. the guy that might be filming the movie for his dying daughter that cannot get out of the house and really would love to see the 3rd Harry Potter movie before she dies.
Is McDonald's marketed as an indulgence, or as something that should be daily consumed? Here are the themes from McDonald's advertising:
McDonald's is Your Kind of Place (1967) You Deserve a Break Today (1971) We Do it All for You (1975) Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheese pickleso nionsonasesameseedbun (1975) You, You're The One (1976) Nobody Can Do It Like McDonald's Can (1979) Renewed: You Deserve a Break Today (1980 & 1981) Nobody Makes Your Day Like McDonald's Can (1981) McDonald's and You (1983) It's a Good Time for the Great Taste of McDonald's (1984) Good Time, Great Taste, That's Why This is My Place (1988) Food, Folks and Fun (1990) McDonald's Today (1991) What You Want is What You Get (1992) Have you Had your Break Today? (1995) My McDonald's (1997) Did Somebody Say McDonald's (1997) We Love to See You Smile (2000)
I wish everyone would quit their bitching about how unhealthy McDonalds is.
Smashing your head between a concrete floor and a sledge hammer is unhealthy too. McDonald's is an American icon that is recognised as "American goodness" around the world, smashing your head is not.
I personally think that any comments about such a world known establishment are welcome, because we (collectively) have made it the icon that it is, and maybe its time for the icon to either change, or for us to have a new one.
I can't believe that I'm replying to an ac, but here we go.
Could it be that Americans do not take book titles so seriously or think they are reflection on themselves?
I can't speak for all americans beliefs, but I will say that every aspect of a human's behavior is a reflection of themselves.
Maybe Americans are smart enough to know that the publisher probably uses the word "dummy" in their titles as an exaggeration to get the attention of the buying public?
Close. Its simply brand recognition. Do people go to McDonalds for good food? Nope, they go because they know what they can expect. All of the books look the same and have the same theme in the title "$SUBJECT for Dummies" or the "Complete Idiot's Guide to $SUBJECT" (I believe that is the theme for the other series). The books are as recognisable as the "Golden Arches". There is an excellent book called "The McDonaldization of America". It appears to have a website here. Where the author goes on and on about how comfortable americans are with brand recognition, from food, to movies (and sequals), etc. Its worth a look.
In my glossing over these books, I find them useless. Somehow I got a copy of UNIX for Dummies from somebody about 10 years ago, and if I had seriously intended for it to be a reference for me, I would be just as much as a dummy as before. 99% of the useful stuff was in the "advanced nerd section" or whatever it was called, and then it only glossed over the topic. I would bet that little to no information is actually acquired by the reader of these books, and they probably sit unread on a bookshelf somewhere. Embarisingly enough, my parents have a few of them, and none of them were read.
Who in the world needs an attorney when there's this free legal service? Plus we all know that slashdot will outlive all of us, so you could even post your will here.
This link has an interview with David Cohen and it says that he got a bachelor's degree in physics (I don't think you can get a BA in physics, but maybe I'm wrong) and a masters degree in cs from Berkeley.
Your login/password is sent to an "https" address. It is being sent encrypted. Look at the source and see for yourself.
I'm sorry but that is not good enough. I cannot verify that I am at www.bankofamerica.com, I cannot view the cert before putting in my username/password. Do you (and the bank people) expect me and every other customer to view the source for the form handler to make sure that my banking information is actually going to be encrypted?
Yes, I turned off the bozobox warning messaage, because I do not care if my google searches are not over a secure channel, or a post like this is not encrypted. But I want to check and doublecheck that my money info is encrypted. I will continue to put in the wrong username/password until I get to a secure page. I mean, even the "free" yahoo mail service offers an encrypted login (if its not even the default now), why can't my bank?
You can also do this with typing 'pwd' or whatever to get a full path and drop that in your browser. Very handy for some software that has html documentation. Much easier than File->Open and going through the gui.
Just plain sucks when it comes to security. Got to http://www.bankofamerica.com. Notice that its http and not https. Also, now go to https://www.bankofamerica.com, and notice that it kindly redirects you back to the insecure link.
I use this bank, and I always put in my wrong userid and passwd so that I can enter them on a secure page. If someone is interested in thousands of bank accounts go ahead and register www.bankfoamerica.com or something similar, and mass mail people to make sure their account is correct or whatever. People will follow the link. You can simply grab their info and redirect them to the proper server with little hastle from anyone.
I've called and told them about this, and they told me that "We are a bank, we take security very seriously, thank you very much". This was when I called them to find out the real balance of my credit card. I had 2 balances with $1,200 difference between them. They told me it was a cache problem in my browser, even thought I used 3 different browsers, under 2 different usernames on my system. They didn't seem to understand that a) https data is not cached between browsers, nor b) https data is not cached between different users. Oh yeah, this is also after they started talking to me about my last purchases on my cc without confirming _any_ form of identification besides my cc number.
I feel as though I have an OK workaround by putting in the wrong info the 1st time, but if anyone else uses Bank Of America, I would suggest a call to them.
Well, first of all, music stores require something on the order of a 4 to 5 dollar markup to turn enough of a profit to be a viable business, so that provides the low-end (if you accept that music stores are necessary to have sufficient access to music).
The dollar store does not require this markup. This place can sell CDs at $0.69 a piece in runs as small as 1000. This place can do it for about $1 a piece, including artwork, silkscreening the CD, and shrinkwrapping the puppy into a puzzle for everyone to figure out. Plus very few people use or want jewel cases anymore, the cardboard covers are fine.
If anyone thinks that 2 to 40 years after a recording is done that studio needs to recover recording costs and royaltees to oftentimes dead people, then that is completly nuts. I don't get paid for work I did 60 days ago, nor do I expect to do so. I don't know anyone personally that does. Anyone can make a perfect copy of a CD in minutes, that is not true with other artforms.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, given a no-focus digital camera with enough megapixels, most certainly a plate can be read automatically by computer at 300 feet. The photons are there- it's just a matter of detecting them with enough resolution to make OCR possible.
OK, I would have never of guessed that this was ever possible. I mean, spy planes can read a book on the ground from the air, but a camera taking a picture of a license plate and feeding it to an OCR at 300 feet, this is incredible. Being that the picture and OCR trick needs direct line of sight, and it requires extra equipment to aid the "viewee" (I did say naked eye, which is primarily how license plates are used today), I must bring up my original question.
Would RFID tags superseed visual tags? I see nothing that the visually oriented tags would add over an RFID one except for their ugliness.
This also gives the government (or anyone else who can hack into their systems) the ability to locate your car at any point in time.
Yes, the article did clearly state that these RFID tag readers were located on satelites with GPS info as well.
Err, no it didn't. It said that the plates could be read up to 300 feet (100m) away. Toll systems already have this info, plus the helicoptors on the news here in the US have no problem locating and following cars.
Hmm, being that I don't think that a license plate can be read at 300 feet by the naked eye, does this mean that the traditional plates are now obsolete? (Or are they going to stay with us like the Cap Lock key?).
If reviewers are unpaid what are the actual costs in peer review?
The editor who reviews the reviews, finds reviewers, etc.
The editors, reviewers, and authors are all unpaid
... the authors want the widest, freest distribution possible ... Why on earth do we still give journals the right to act as gatekeepers for our information, when they give us almost nothing (basically just a referral service) in return
I believe that editors get paid quite well, and they earn every penny, but yes, reviewers and authors are unpaid, it comes with the job of being a scientist.
Nothing is stopping scientists from simply throwing their articles on a website somewhere. I can't think of a wider more free distribution method.
The reason that we give journals the right to act as gatekeepers is because we want them to do it. A scientist knows that there are journals that have higher respect in a field, and it looks good on scientists' vitas to have publications in peer reviewed journals, especially the more respected ones. The peer review is essential, and that is what costs money. Any bozo can throw something on a website. Journals have very strict standards for the format of the paper, and the methods used in the science. As far as who pays? Someone is paying the scientist and funding the research. I would guess that any costs associated with publishing the research is much less than 1% of research itself.
A person states this:
I thought is was widely accepted that clock speed means nothing.
It gets modded up as "Interesting".
Then, the same person, immediately asks:
Would a G5 2.5 GHz be comparable to and Intel check with the same clock speed or a AMD 2400+?
I guess you and the moderators and all those who replied have yet to accept that clock speed means....
WFT people????????
Don't forget hardware will be free, and software will be free, and the stock price will continue to yoyo.
Soon, Sun will have fewer products than these guys.
We don't need no education. I still don't understand why common desktop environments don't show common stuff like cpu utilization & network utilization.
Most people when their computer is owned complain that it "seems slower than it used to", but they have nothing in their tray or menu system that says "Look asshole, your cpu has been at 100% utilization for the past 3 weeks. Are you a scientist running massively long calculations on your desktop and have no real computer to use or is something really, really wrong with your computer?".
Viri and spam agents are resource intensive. Every owned box that I've seen I could either look at how slow it was, even with just a screen saver, or one time I found a coworker had a spam relay on his box, and I could hear the harddrive going nuts. He thought it was "busy". After clamping down on sendmail, the box became very quiet.
I see this as the only education people need. Maybe then people will start complaining about flash animations because they get associated with viri. Maybe.
This pdf link. It tells you how to restore a dummy user's home directory after each login (Its for OSX, not sure if the grape can handle that or not).
Aside from some software tweaking and installation, this should really help your setup.
simply make a distinction between "I am looking to buy something" searches vs "I am looking for information about something".
They are cleary different kinds of searches, and I do both of them, yet I get the same results for both kinds of searches. With the exception for froogle, which is definitely a step in the right direction, but not quite there.
Although the interface has gotten a little better on altavista (remember them??), but searches like: for used condoms do not make sense for retail stores at all. I'm sorry guys, there isn't a market for used condoms, but if there were I'm sure someone would be more than willing to supply the demand.
The google search for used condoms is a little better, but the advertising links on the right hand side does have:
Used Anything -Dirt Cheap
at Gov't & Police Auctions Near You
Seized, Surplus Property. Hot Deals
www.GovernmentAuctions.org
And please do not take a tangent on "used condoms", its just a sick memorable example.
This is the 2nd person that has tried to rationalize the price of phone service/features based on service and features. Phones always have been, and I guess they always will be a scam so long as people keep acting confused about the prices and _paying them anyway_.
At least here in the US, basic phone service is about the price of the fees and taxes to use the service. Every phone company has "the lowest prices", but when you get the bill its always the same or more than what you were paying before. It used to be land line and long distance scams, now its cell phones. I think the phone companies are laughing it all the way to the bank because they appear to like having short term customers so that they can keep raising the prices or hiding the prices in other places on your bill when your too busy trying to figure out how the new cheaper service costs the same or more than your previous service.
I own one (wireless) phone that is paid for by my work. I refuse to ever play this game ever again. When I can have internet access to everywhere in the world for $15 -> $20 a month with no hidden fees, I refuse to pay a penny more than this for voice service.
the US Navy and other branches of the service radio messages all always in all caps
cat data | perl -pe '$_ = uc'
It's necessary for whenever you want to type in all-caps without holding shift the whole time.
That is a software issue not a hardware one. Caps lock have nothing to do with >>99.9% of computing, and 99.9% of the time it is invoked accidentally, and it has negative effects on the users computing experience. The password entry should never be in all caps, neither should commandline interfaces, most editors (emacs, vi, etc) dont make sense when cap locks is enabled, and for some reason, all caps is difficult to read, and it LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE IS YELLING AT YOU!!!
I always disable it in windows, my mac, linux, etc. Its one of the 1st things I do when I get a new computer. Let the damn thing be emulated in software if its needed.
Which brings up the fact that there are new laws in CA and I guess other states/countries or whatever that explictly say somthing to the affect that "Its against the law to break the copyright law with a camcorder in a movie theater" or the equivalent in legal speak. I'm sure I'm with most /.ers being against very silly specific laws like this, especially when there are broader laws that already exist and cover the crime.
I also think that if I were the MPAA I would go after the people distributing the copies in black market vs trying to get them in the theater, since a) many screeners and whatnot are leaked from studios anyway and do not use camcorders, and b) that is where the $$$ is and c) there are more people selling copies vs recording copies and when you put heat on the sellers then they wont sell and then people wont record.
Plus, it is an easier conviction with existing laws to go after the sellers when they have X numbers of blatently illegal copies of a movie vs. the guy that might be filming the movie for his dying daughter that cannot get out of the house and really would love to see the 3rd Harry Potter movie before she dies.
Excessive consumption of fast food IS the enemy.
e pickleso nionsonasesameseedbun (1975)
Is McDonald's marketed as an indulgence, or as something that should be daily consumed? Here are the themes from McDonald's advertising:
McDonald's is Your Kind of Place (1967)
You Deserve a Break Today (1971)
We Do it All for You (1975)
Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucechees
You, You're The One (1976)
Nobody Can Do It Like McDonald's Can (1979)
Renewed: You Deserve a Break Today (1980 & 1981)
Nobody Makes Your Day Like McDonald's Can (1981)
McDonald's and You (1983)
It's a Good Time for the Great Taste of McDonald's (1984)
Good Time, Great Taste, That's Why This is My Place (1988)
Food, Folks and Fun (1990)
McDonald's Today (1991)
What You Want is What You Get (1992)
Have you Had your Break Today? (1995)
My McDonald's (1997)
Did Somebody Say McDonald's (1997)
We Love to See You Smile (2000)
Notice the themes of "Today", and "everyday good feelings"? Do McDonald's ads portray the reality of eating its food on a daily basis?
I wish everyone would quit their bitching about how unhealthy McDonalds is.
Smashing your head between a concrete floor and a sledge hammer is unhealthy too. McDonald's is an American icon that is recognised as "American goodness" around the world, smashing your head is not.
I personally think that any comments about such a world known establishment are welcome, because we (collectively) have made it the icon that it is, and maybe its time for the icon to either change, or for us to have a new one.
I can't believe that I'm replying to an ac, but here we go.
Could it be that Americans do not take book titles so seriously or think they are reflection on themselves?
I can't speak for all americans beliefs, but I will say that every aspect of a human's behavior is a reflection of themselves.
Maybe Americans are smart enough to know that the publisher probably uses the word "dummy" in their titles as an exaggeration to get the attention of the buying public?
Close. Its simply brand recognition. Do people go to McDonalds for good food? Nope, they go because they know what they can expect. All of the books look the same and have the same theme in the title "$SUBJECT for Dummies" or the "Complete Idiot's Guide to $SUBJECT" (I believe that is the theme for the other series). The books are as recognisable as the "Golden Arches". There is an excellent book called "The McDonaldization of America". It appears to have a website here. Where the author goes on and on about how comfortable americans are with brand recognition, from food, to movies (and sequals), etc. Its worth a look.
In my glossing over these books, I find them useless. Somehow I got a copy of UNIX for Dummies from somebody about 10 years ago, and if I had seriously intended for it to be a reference for me, I would be just as much as a dummy as before. 99% of the useful stuff was in the "advanced nerd section" or whatever it was called, and then it only glossed over the topic. I would bet that little to no information is actually acquired by the reader of these books, and they probably sit unread on a bookshelf somewhere. Embarisingly enough, my parents have a few of them, and none of them were read.
Wouldn't that be a movie written, directed,
post-produced, and distributed by bots?
Only when the bots were built by bots.
Who in the world needs an attorney when there's this free legal service? Plus we all know that slashdot will outlive all of us, so you could even post your will here.
There should be a wrong -1 mod option.
This link has an interview with David Cohen and it says that he got a bachelor's degree in physics (I don't think you can get a BA in physics, but maybe I'm wrong) and a masters degree in cs from Berkeley.
Your login/password is sent to an "https" address. It is being sent encrypted. Look at the source and see for yourself.
I'm sorry but that is not good enough. I cannot verify that I am at www.bankofamerica.com, I cannot view the cert before putting in my username/password. Do you (and the bank people) expect me and every other customer to view the source for the form handler to make sure that my banking information is actually going to be encrypted?
Yes, I turned off the bozobox warning messaage, because I do not care if my google searches are not over a secure channel, or a post like this is not encrypted. But I want to check and doublecheck that my money info is encrypted. I will continue to put in the wrong username/password until I get to a secure page. I mean, even the "free" yahoo mail service offers an encrypted login (if its not even the default now), why can't my bank?
You can also do this with typing 'pwd' or whatever to get a full path and drop that in your browser. Very handy for some software that has html documentation. Much easier than File->Open and going through the gui.
Just plain sucks when it comes to security. Got to http://www.bankofamerica.com. Notice that its http and not https. Also, now go to https://www.bankofamerica.com, and notice that it kindly redirects you back to the insecure link.
I use this bank, and I always put in my wrong userid and passwd so that I can enter them on a secure page. If someone is interested in thousands of bank accounts go ahead and register www.bankfoamerica.com or something similar, and mass mail people to make sure their account is correct or whatever. People will follow the link. You can simply grab their info and redirect them to the proper server with little hastle from anyone.
I've called and told them about this, and they told me that "We are a bank, we take security very seriously, thank you very much". This was when I called them to find out the real balance of my credit card. I had 2 balances with $1,200 difference between them. They told me it was a cache problem in my browser, even thought I used 3 different browsers, under 2 different usernames on my system. They didn't seem to understand that a) https data is not cached between browsers, nor b) https data is not cached between different users. Oh yeah, this is also after they started talking to me about my last purchases on my cc without confirming _any_ form of identification besides my cc number.
I feel as though I have an OK workaround by putting in the wrong info the 1st time, but if anyone else uses Bank Of America, I would suggest a call to them.
http://www.macosxlabs.org/presentations/other/Harv ard_SIG_Part_2.pdf
You do what for a living?
Well, first of all, music stores require something on the order of a 4 to 5 dollar markup to turn enough of a profit to be a viable business, so that provides the low-end (if you accept that music stores are necessary to have sufficient access to music).
The dollar store does not require this markup. This place can sell CDs at $0.69 a piece in runs as small as 1000. This place can do it for about $1 a piece, including artwork, silkscreening the CD, and shrinkwrapping the puppy into a puzzle for everyone to figure out. Plus very few people use or want jewel cases anymore, the cardboard covers are fine.
If anyone thinks that 2 to 40 years after a recording is done that studio needs to recover recording costs and royaltees to oftentimes dead people, then that is completly nuts. I don't get paid for work I did 60 days ago, nor do I expect to do so. I don't know anyone personally that does. Anyone can make a perfect copy of a CD in minutes, that is not true with other artforms.