ROTFLMAO. At six inch resolution the smallest printing you can read are letters about two feet tall (under ideal conditions). Something a foot tall is just a blobby handful of pixels.
The point I was trying to make is that from 80,000 feet, viewing something at 6" vs. 1" doesn't require a huge increase in detail.
Sorry, I get my information from actual sources - not random webpages.
Fine. Provide some actual sources then. You haven't provided any actual sources to refute my claims, just a lot of bluster.
As far as solid-state lighting goes, I'll be impressed when they can create a cost-effective replacement for stagelights. I work with a variety of stagelights on a regular basis, the most common of which use 500-1000 watt halogen bulbs. If they can create a replacement that provides similar characteristics (dimming, lumens, color, etc) but use less power and generate less heat then I'll really be impressed.
A bird that high up can't see an entire state (unless it's one of the tiny ones in New England), let alone the entire continental US.
The U2 used a camera package designated the A-2. It actually consisted of 3 individual cameras, one pointing straight down, and one to either side. It was common practice to "stitch" individual photos together into a single coherent image. In that manner the U2 could easily create what appeared to be a single photo of the entire continental US while flying at its operational altitude of 70,000 feet. What, you think Google Earth has the patent on stitching images together?
We didn't have that level of sophistication in the 60's, nor do we today - because it violates the laws of physics. (Atmosphere scatter alone limits resolution to a few centimeters - you'd barely be able to see the ball.)
The A-2 camera system used by the U2 is publicly known to have had an image resolution of 2.5 feet. So at 70,000 feet it could clearly resolve an image under 3 feet. The SR-71 could fly at 85,000 feet and its Technical Objective Camera (TEOC), which was used for very high resolution reconnaissance, is reported to have a resolution of 6". This is all information that's publicly available and you can find it yourself if you bother doing a little bit of searching.
Given that we could accurately photograph something 6" from an SR-71 flying at 85,000 feet back in the mid 1960's I think it's safe to say our military has much better capabilities now, 40 years later. When my dad saw the images I described he didn't know what sort of aircraft they came from. It could have been a U2 or an SR-71 or something completely different. But again, if you bother to search you can find independent confirmation of the capabilities of these planes. I know of one website created by a former SR-71 technician who had firsthand knowledge of a lot of this. He describes seeing photos of a parking lot taken from an SR-71 at over 80,000 feet and the lines between the parking spaces (less than 6" in width) are clearly visible. He also describes seeing blowups of these images where even more detail can be seen. You don't need much more detail beyond 6" resolution to read print on something 1" in diameter. If you really care to spend a few minutes with Google I'm sure you can find it.
Who says the building wasn't designed to handle it? Maybe it was built by a bunch of paranoids specifically to keep the prying eyes of the military industrial complex out!
What makes you think the man can't see through your roof, buddy?
All my ceilings are lined with tinfoil.
That, and the fact that I live in an apartment with two units over me, and one of those people is more paranoid than I am, so he probably has both lead and tinfoil on his ceilings.
I personally never do anything outdoors that I wouldn't want to be caught doing. Paranoid? Perhaps. Unrealistic? Definitely not.
My dad was an electrical engineer with advanced degrees from places like MIT. Back in the 60's he had a top secret security clearance and worked for Mitre, where he worked on projects that as few as six people (including President Kennedy) knew the full details of. He's spoken a few times about a series of photos he once saw, taken from a spy plane something like 10-15 miles up. It started out with a photo of the continental United States. The next one in the series was of a region within the US. The next one was of one particular state (I forget which). The next one was a town within that state. In the next one you could clearly make out a golf course. The next one was one of the holes of the golf course. The next one was the green on the golf course where you could see the flag (pin) in the hole. The last photo in the series showed a golf ball on the green and you could clearly read the name on the golf ball.
If that had that level of sophistication back in the 60's you can be sure they can do even better than that today, which most likely means the same or better level of detail from orbiting satellites.
No way a judge will allow this lawsuit, much less grant it class-action status. Imagine the precedent this would set. I could sue Motorola because my older cell phone doesn't have all the features that their latest ones have. I could sue Toyota because a newer year/model of my car has more features. Etc. etc.
Caller ID along with an answering machine is a great combination. My home phone/answering machin also lets me set up custom ring tones for numbers in its address list. If a family member of friend calls I hear one type of ring so I always answer it. If the Caller ID says something like "blocked" or "unknown" or shows a phone number like 000-000-0000 then I just let my answering machine pick it up. It sure saves me a lot of hassle.
One way or the other I hope this gets resolved fairly quickly. We've been evaluating Zimbra where I work (a couple thousand users) and are getting close to a decision to fully adopt it. If MS buys Yahoo we'll likely have to start all over again. The last thing we want to do is invest heavily in a technology that MS will likely squash.
I wonder if we'll be seeing a slew of lawsuits against Diebold coming in the next few months/years as the states try to recoup the cost of their investments in the Diebold voting machines. I'd bet that they'd have contracts with Diebold that would hold them responsible for failures in the equipment. Given the reports from NH that seem to indicate discrepancies between what Diebold equipment reported and hand recounts I'd think that's a pretty good indicator that the Diebold equipment is faulty.
"Spam will be a thing of the past in two years' time." Bill Gates in 2004.
"Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.
... is one that's physically isolated. I can't think of one good reason why passengers should have any access whatsoever to command/control networks used by the airplane.
And here's to hoping for another 4 years of trundling along the Martian surface!
It absolutely amazes me how engineers are able to build machines like the Rovers, the Voyager spacecraft, etc. so that they last as long as they do in these incredibly hostile environments.
Call me a troll if you will but I have a serious question here.
Microsoft constantly claims that the main reason there are so many trojans & botnets like this is because Windows systems make up the vast majority of computer systems out there, not because Windows is any less secure than linux, OS-X, etc.
Assume a completely even playing field where each of the three main consumer OS's, Windows, linux, and OS-X each has 33.3% of the market. Which environment would a trojan/botnet writer target and why? Put another way, how difficult would it be to develop a similarly intricate for linux or OS-X if a malware author decided to target those platforms?
I found int intriguing reading the part of the article about the chat system. He suddenly found himself able to chat with Spanish speaking kids. I wonder exactly how the whole OLPC chat system works and if this is truly a "feature" or a fluke. I say fluke because the article says the chat system identified itself as chatting with others in Nigeria. Will the OLPC's be "region encoded" so kids can only chat with other local kids? Or will kids be able to easily chat with kids from the other side of the world as well? I can see the second alternative, purposeful or not, as a way to help foster a knowledge of other cultures that these kids would otherwise be entirely unaware of. True, language differences would probably minimize the impact of this sort of thing, but as the article demonstrates even a language barrier isn't enough to keep curious kids from making friends half way around the world.
Mass. tried to do the same thing and they eventually caved in. As a Mass. resident (and something like 10th generation Dutchman) I can only hope that they don't succumb to the pressure like my local lawmakers did.
Well of course it was portable. They were transporting it from the cargo hold of a plane with a forklift, weren't they? Just because you need a jet doesn't mean it's not portable!
... and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll feed himself for life.
True I could go out and pay for some food for these folks, as many do. But unless we start investing in in their future they'll just end up dependent on handouts for generations to come. Many organizations are already offering food to the poor but not very many are investing in giving them access to high tech training that could help them get out of poverty. Hopefully OLPC will prove effective in doing just that.
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ROTFLMAO. At six inch resolution the smallest printing you can read are letters about two feet tall (under ideal conditions). Something a foot tall is just a blobby handful of pixels.
The point I was trying to make is that from 80,000 feet, viewing something at 6" vs. 1" doesn't require a huge increase in detail.
Sorry, I get my information from actual sources - not random webpages.
Fine. Provide some actual sources then. You haven't provided any actual sources to refute my claims, just a lot of bluster.
As far as solid-state lighting goes, I'll be impressed when they can create a cost-effective replacement for stagelights. I work with a variety of stagelights on a regular basis, the most common of which use 500-1000 watt halogen bulbs. If they can create a replacement that provides similar characteristics (dimming, lumens, color, etc) but use less power and generate less heat then I'll really be impressed.
A bird that high up can't see an entire state (unless it's one of the tiny ones in New England), let alone the entire continental US.
The U2 used a camera package designated the A-2. It actually consisted of 3 individual cameras, one pointing straight down, and one to either side. It was common practice to "stitch" individual photos together into a single coherent image. In that manner the U2 could easily create what appeared to be a single photo of the entire continental US while flying at its operational altitude of 70,000 feet. What, you think Google Earth has the patent on stitching images together?
We didn't have that level of sophistication in the 60's, nor do we today - because it violates the laws of physics. (Atmosphere scatter alone limits resolution to a few centimeters - you'd barely be able to see the ball.)
The A-2 camera system used by the U2 is publicly known to have had an image resolution of 2.5 feet. So at 70,000 feet it could clearly resolve an image under 3 feet. The SR-71 could fly at 85,000 feet and its Technical Objective Camera (TEOC), which was used for very high resolution reconnaissance, is reported to have a resolution of 6". This is all information that's publicly available and you can find it yourself if you bother doing a little bit of searching.
Given that we could accurately photograph something 6" from an SR-71 flying at 85,000 feet back in the mid 1960's I think it's safe to say our military has much better capabilities now, 40 years later. When my dad saw the images I described he didn't know what sort of aircraft they came from. It could have been a U2 or an SR-71 or something completely different. But again, if you bother to search you can find independent confirmation of the capabilities of these planes. I know of one website created by a former SR-71 technician who had firsthand knowledge of a lot of this. He describes seeing photos of a parking lot taken from an SR-71 at over 80,000 feet and the lines between the parking spaces (less than 6" in width) are clearly visible. He also describes seeing blowups of these images where even more detail can be seen. You don't need much more detail beyond 6" resolution to read print on something 1" in diameter. If you really care to spend a few minutes with Google I'm sure you can find it.
Who says the building wasn't designed to handle it? Maybe it was built by a bunch of paranoids specifically to keep the prying eyes of the military industrial complex out!
What makes you think the man can't see through your roof, buddy?
All my ceilings are lined with tinfoil.
That, and the fact that I live in an apartment with two units over me, and one of those people is more paranoid than I am, so he probably has both lead and tinfoil on his ceilings.
I personally never do anything outdoors that I wouldn't want to be caught doing. Paranoid? Perhaps. Unrealistic? Definitely not.
My dad was an electrical engineer with advanced degrees from places like MIT. Back in the 60's he had a top secret security clearance and worked for Mitre, where he worked on projects that as few as six people (including President Kennedy) knew the full details of. He's spoken a few times about a series of photos he once saw, taken from a spy plane something like 10-15 miles up. It started out with a photo of the continental United States. The next one in the series was of a region within the US. The next one was of one particular state (I forget which). The next one was a town within that state. In the next one you could clearly make out a golf course. The next one was one of the holes of the golf course. The next one was the green on the golf course where you could see the flag (pin) in the hole. The last photo in the series showed a golf ball on the green and you could clearly read the name on the golf ball.
If that had that level of sophistication back in the 60's you can be sure they can do even better than that today, which most likely means the same or better level of detail from orbiting satellites.
No way a judge will allow this lawsuit, much less grant it class-action status. Imagine the precedent this would set. I could sue Motorola because my older cell phone doesn't have all the features that their latest ones have. I could sue Toyota because a newer year/model of my car has more features. Etc. etc.
It's a Motorola 5.8 GHz phone system. I believe this is the base station. I also have a couple remotes around the house.
Caller ID along with an answering machine is a great combination. My home phone/answering machin also lets me set up custom ring tones for numbers in its address list. If a family member of friend calls I hear one type of ring so I always answer it. If the Caller ID says something like "blocked" or "unknown" or shows a phone number like 000-000-0000 then I just let my answering machine pick it up. It sure saves me a lot of hassle.
My congresscritters are finally doing something I approve of!
One way or the other I hope this gets resolved fairly quickly. We've been evaluating Zimbra where I work (a couple thousand users) and are getting close to a decision to fully adopt it. If MS buys Yahoo we'll likely have to start all over again. The last thing we want to do is invest heavily in a technology that MS will likely squash.
I wonder if we'll be seeing a slew of lawsuits against Diebold coming in the next few months/years as the states try to recoup the cost of their investments in the Diebold voting machines. I'd bet that they'd have contracts with Diebold that would hold them responsible for failures in the equipment. Given the reports from NH that seem to indicate discrepancies between what Diebold equipment reported and hand recounts I'd think that's a pretty good indicator that the Diebold equipment is faulty.
"Spam will be a thing of the past in two years' time." Bill Gates in 2004.
"Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.
"Read my lips. NO NEW TAXES." George Bush, 1988
And plenty of others...
Too bad others have predicted the world will come to an end in 2012.
Looks like Sony wins this one.
I guess it's about time they won one of these format wars after the failures of their memory sticks, mini disks, DAT, etc.
... is one that's physically isolated. I can't think of one good reason why passengers should have any access whatsoever to command/control networks used by the airplane.
I can't wait to see the television they have to build to display those images...
Actually I guess "Happy Anniversary" is a bit more appropriate...
And here's to hoping for another 4 years of trundling along the Martian surface!
It absolutely amazes me how engineers are able to build machines like the Rovers, the Voyager spacecraft, etc. so that they last as long as they do in these incredibly hostile environments.
My brother had a recurring dream as a kid. He was chased over and under his bed by an octopus. What kind of threat was he preparing for?
Call me a troll if you will but I have a serious question here.
Microsoft constantly claims that the main reason there are so many trojans & botnets like this is because Windows systems make up the vast majority of computer systems out there, not because Windows is any less secure than linux, OS-X, etc.
Assume a completely even playing field where each of the three main consumer OS's, Windows, linux, and OS-X each has 33.3% of the market. Which environment would a trojan/botnet writer target and why? Put another way, how difficult would it be to develop a similarly intricate for linux or OS-X if a malware author decided to target those platforms?
I found int intriguing reading the part of the article about the chat system. He suddenly found himself able to chat with Spanish speaking kids. I wonder exactly how the whole OLPC chat system works and if this is truly a "feature" or a fluke. I say fluke because the article says the chat system identified itself as chatting with others in Nigeria. Will the OLPC's be "region encoded" so kids can only chat with other local kids? Or will kids be able to easily chat with kids from the other side of the world as well? I can see the second alternative, purposeful or not, as a way to help foster a knowledge of other cultures that these kids would otherwise be entirely unaware of. True, language differences would probably minimize the impact of this sort of thing, but as the article demonstrates even a language barrier isn't enough to keep curious kids from making friends half way around the world.
Mass. tried to do the same thing and they eventually caved in. As a Mass. resident (and something like 10th generation Dutchman) I can only hope that they don't succumb to the pressure like my local lawmakers did.
Well of course it was portable. They were transporting it from the cargo hold of a plane with a forklift, weren't they? Just because you need a jet doesn't mean it's not portable!
... and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll feed himself for life.
True I could go out and pay for some food for these folks, as many do. But unless we start investing in in their future they'll just end up dependent on handouts for generations to come. Many organizations are already offering food to the poor but not very many are investing in giving them access to high tech training that could help them get out of poverty. Hopefully OLPC will prove effective in doing just that.