I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing here. I just bought a PS3 now that they're nice and cheap and boy was I disappointed by how the controller functions in FPS games. Previously I've played shooters on a PC and a Wii with Wiimote as a pointer (Resident Evil). The PS3 controller is terrible in comparison in such games. It's fine for racers and platformers, though. Looking at videos on Youtube I've come to the conclusion that even with a lot of practice one would never be as fast on a PS3 controller as with a K&M.
The PS3 (or XBox) analog sticks define direction and speed of the camera in an FPS game. However, what you want is the absolute position of the camera (since you're aiming). A mouse gives you this, which is why it's such a great input method. A track-pad also does this pretty well, as the concept is the same. If they can sort out the details, such as speed and resolution of pointing, this could be a very nice controller indeed.
For a 55" screen - the reason is clear - if you're sitting fairly close to it - the edges are noticably further away from you.
It'll happen with any size screen. In fact, it's happening right now on my 13" laptop screen from which I am about a foot away. I'll get over, though.
The curved screen stuff is a PR gimmick--that's why they're pricing the gear so high--they're not expecting most people to buy it. They're expecting people to talk about it. Looks like it's succeeding.
>>>>Leaving racist rant aside, scientific Nobel pizes are serious, non-scientific prizes (peace, literature or even economy) are not in the same level of credibility, by any means.
Isn't that kind of like saying, "I don't like the Nazis, but you know some of the things they did are ok"?
No, it's more like saying "I'm going to rise above your trolling ass whilst correcting you"
I understand the value of doing experiments, and I understand the value of replicating experiments. But this doesn't sound like either.
Then you misunderstand. I'm a neuroscientist and I've taught PhD students using the backyard brains kit. There's lots to learn: I wish I had a kit like this in school. You can do simple "research" with it, no question. It's a super-cheap way of recording action potentials. With a little creativity there's plenty to learn: rate coding and temporal coding of sensory information using spikes, stimulation and adaptation of sensory input. Everyone can have their own kit and just get going. No need for expensive amps and scopes. We started using the kits last year but they've been on sale for longer than that. I don't know why the article says "starting this November", none of this is that new.
Not that I have a ton of experience, but I've never seen a modern smartphone display break just from being dropped. The glass, sure, it'll shatter and spiderweb and be wrecked to hell -- but usually the display underneath is still quite functional.
if you're going to try to create a model of something vastly complex you should probably start with something easy (and by easy I mean less vastly complex).
He is keeping up. IBM didn't really simulate a cat brain. The anatomy of the cat brain isn't known well enough to do this. They just came up with an arbitrary definition of what computational unit equates to a neuron and then made a network with that many units. Basically, it doesn't count.
I would expect to be a much more reasonable starting point and one with the obvious advantage that you can experiment on, breed whole lines of defective forms to study, just generally have far more control and face no ethical issues with.
You're right, and this is already being done. For example, the entire wiring diagram of the worm, c. elegans, already exists: http://wormweb.org/neuralnet#c=RIM&m=1 and http://www.wormatlas.org/neuronalwiring.html There are only about 300 neurons and we know all their connections. Guess what? Despite this we still have little idea how the worm actually "works" The circuit is rife with non-linearities that are poorly understood and so creating an accurate working model of a worm based upon the wiring diagram is currently not possible. Research in fruit flies is also yielding a lot of very detailed circuit-level data, however, because there are 150k neurons in the fly head a wiring diagram does not exist. Furthermore, unlike the worm, there is significant variability between some neurons across individual flies. Given all this (particularly what we've learned from worms), I'm skepical about the Human Brain Project. Seems like hubris to attempt to model the human brain. Still, if you don't try...
Of course it's not genuinely unbreakable--everything blends, after all. "Unbreakable" really means "unbreakable in 99% of normal usage scanrios" of similar. It means you can drop it of a table onto a hard floor and the screen won't shatter. It doesn't mean you can chuck it down a cliff and expect it to survive.
I'm not going to post the name of the institute here, but it's not in your field. It's a relatively small institute that runs various courses and meetings. As far as I know, they expect payment in advance. This is rather a special case, you're right than in most meetings there are significant costs that would be reimbursed after the event. In this case it would have been only travel, which from the NIH institute would have been a small fraction of the rest of the costs. Even a student could afford to pay it out of pocket. The point is that it should be the researcher's choice, we're all adults, and that money's being wasted.
I'm a scientist and there's a conference going on right now at my institute. Researchers have already paid for everything in advance (weeks/months ago): meeting fees, food, accommodation. The total comes to around $2k. However, researchers from the NIH institute have been told that they can't attend because of the shutdown. Clearly this isn't about cost savings. One researcher was apparently planning on visiting relatives in the area after the meeting and asked if they could just go and do that instead (on their own dime) and they were told "no" and that it would be "bad if we found out that you went". So there you go. Makes little or no sense to me. Frankly, I find cordoning off memorials in DC to be similarly silly.
the basic answer is that they do science experiments.
But that's a pretty vague list. It's more of a list of fields of research then actual outcomes. Of the few things where outcomes are listed (e.g. dark matter) it's not obvious why a manned station is needed to conduct the work.
And some pretty nice photos the astronauts take. Overall, though, I think I agree with you. Money could have been better spent elsewhere. Oh: you can also *see* it through a telescope. i.e. see the solar panels and stuff, which it is pretty cool.
I'm keen on astronomy and space exploration but I don't understand what the ISS is really for. Surely the billions that have been spent on it would have gone further had we directed them towards space probes or space telescopes? From what I can tell, it seems to be serve more of a diplomatic role than a scientific role.
Snowden was and continues to be at far higher risk of assassination than Malala.
I don't think that's true. At this point Snowden being free is just embarrassing to the US. He's apparently already given the press everything he knows so killing him isn't going to improve anything from the NSA's perspective. On the other hand, if Snowden meets with a peculiar "accident" then the US government just comes out of it looking bad. Malala, on the other hand, is more than just an embarrassment to the extremists who shot her. She has chosen to remain vocal for her cause and therefore represents a continuing threat because she acts a nucleation site for the more liberal attitudes they are seeking to suppress.
Animal scent is based on vibrations in molecules that dock to receptors in the nose. This allows detection of very low concentrations of molecules. Similar systems can now be created artificially.
There is no compelling evidence that scent (animal or our own) is based upon "vibrations", although such theories do exist. Instead, it seem that odorant molecules bind to receptors in the nose in an analogous way to that by other ligand/receptor pairs, such as neurotransmitters to neurotransmitter receptors. The difference seems to be the most odorant receptors types bind to a range of different odorants. An animal such as s rat has hundreds of different classes of odorant receptor, each of which binds to different sub-sets of odors and so sees the world through a different lens. We think it's by comparing the activities of these different classes that odor discrimination is achieved.
If you're a researcher with some experience in writing code, you should ask you self, "should I spend that much time writing code, while a programmer does a better job in less time while it has also less bugs, will be reviewed and has unit tests"? Also, how much do you know about design patterns? Sure. Your code works without. Good luck with it. Also good luck with the headache in one year.
It usually doesn't work like that. The researcher does the experiments then analyses and interprets the data. If the latter process requires coding then the researcher does the coding. If a researcher gives up the coding to a programmer (who may have a bad understanding of the science) then they have lost ownership of their data. Besides, there's usually no money to pay a programmer. The only situation where a programmer is called for is in a big lab which needs one or more significant software projects created for things like complex data acquisition or controlling elaborate hardware. There you have a point: I've seen such projects undertaken by non-specialists and the results are hair-raising.
I have had to cleanup after some of these grads. I take great sadistic pleasure in throwing out two years of effort and rewriting it all from scratch in a couple of weeks.
Of course it's a lot easier and quicker to re-write someone's code when you already know what you're aiming at.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing here. I just bought a PS3 now that they're nice and cheap and boy was I disappointed by how the controller functions in FPS games. Previously I've played shooters on a PC and a Wii with Wiimote as a pointer (Resident Evil). The PS3 controller is terrible in comparison in such games. It's fine for racers and platformers, though. Looking at videos on Youtube I've come to the conclusion that even with a lot of practice one would never be as fast on a PS3 controller as with a K&M.
The PS3 (or XBox) analog sticks define direction and speed of the camera in an FPS game. However, what you want is the absolute position of the camera (since you're aiming). A mouse gives you this, which is why it's such a great input method. A track-pad also does this pretty well, as the concept is the same. If they can sort out the details, such as speed and resolution of pointing, this could be a very nice controller indeed.
Geometrically.
For a 55" screen - the reason is clear - if you're sitting fairly close to it - the edges are noticably further away from you.
It'll happen with any size screen. In fact, it's happening right now on my 13" laptop screen from which I am about a foot away. I'll get over, though.
The curved screen stuff is a PR gimmick--that's why they're pricing the gear so high--they're not expecting most people to buy it. They're expecting people to talk about it. Looks like it's succeeding.
Or even buy it by the sheet: http://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/uncutcurrency.aspx
>>>>Leaving racist rant aside, scientific Nobel pizes are serious, non-scientific prizes (peace, literature or even economy) are not in the same level of credibility, by any means.
Isn't that kind of like saying, "I don't like the Nazis, but you know some of the things they did are ok"?
No, it's more like saying "I'm going to rise above your trolling ass whilst correcting you"
I understand the value of doing experiments, and I understand the value of replicating experiments. But this doesn't sound like either.
Then you misunderstand. I'm a neuroscientist and I've taught PhD students using the backyard brains kit. There's lots to learn: I wish I had a kit like this in school. You can do simple "research" with it, no question. It's a super-cheap way of recording action potentials. With a little creativity there's plenty to learn: rate coding and temporal coding of sensory information using spikes, stimulation and adaptation of sensory input. Everyone can have their own kit and just get going. No need for expensive amps and scopes. We started using the kits last year but they've been on sale for longer than that. I don't know why the article says "starting this November", none of this is that new.
And there appears to be methane snow coating Titan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon) Rain too, by the looks of things: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/titan-april-showers/
Not that I have a ton of experience, but I've never seen a modern smartphone display break just from being dropped. The glass, sure, it'll shatter and spiderweb and be wrecked to hell -- but usually the display underneath is still quite functional.
Yeah, I guess that's true in my experience too.
if you're going to try to create a model of something vastly complex you should probably start with something easy (and by easy I mean less vastly complex).
Try and keep up, monkey brain; IBM Simulates 4.5 percent of the Human Brain, and All of the Cat Brain, October 25, 2011
He is keeping up. IBM didn't really simulate a cat brain. The anatomy of the cat brain isn't known well enough to do this. They just came up with an arbitrary definition of what computational unit equates to a neuron and then made a network with that many units. Basically, it doesn't count.
I would expect to be a much more reasonable starting point and one with the obvious advantage that you can experiment on, breed whole lines of defective forms to study, just generally have far more control and face no ethical issues with.
You're right, and this is already being done. For example, the entire wiring diagram of the worm, c. elegans, already exists: http://wormweb.org/neuralnet#c=RIM&m=1 and http://www.wormatlas.org/neuronalwiring.html There are only about 300 neurons and we know all their connections. Guess what? Despite this we still have little idea how the worm actually "works" The circuit is rife with non-linearities that are poorly understood and so creating an accurate working model of a worm based upon the wiring diagram is currently not possible. Research in fruit flies is also yielding a lot of very detailed circuit-level data, however, because there are 150k neurons in the fly head a wiring diagram does not exist. Furthermore, unlike the worm, there is significant variability between some neurons across individual flies. Given all this (particularly what we've learned from worms), I'm skepical about the Human Brain Project. Seems like hubris to attempt to model the human brain. Still, if you don't try...
Of course it's not genuinely unbreakable--everything blends, after all. "Unbreakable" really means "unbreakable in 99% of normal usage scanrios" of similar. It means you can drop it of a table onto a hard floor and the screen won't shatter. It doesn't mean you can chuck it down a cliff and expect it to survive.
I'm not going to post the name of the institute here, but it's not in your field. It's a relatively small institute that runs various courses and meetings. As far as I know, they expect payment in advance. This is rather a special case, you're right than in most meetings there are significant costs that would be reimbursed after the event. In this case it would have been only travel, which from the NIH institute would have been a small fraction of the rest of the costs. Even a student could afford to pay it out of pocket. The point is that it should be the researcher's choice, we're all adults, and that money's being wasted.
You missed what I said: the meals are included in this case.
I'm a scientist and there's a conference going on right now at my institute. Researchers have already paid for everything in advance (weeks/months ago): meeting fees, food, accommodation. The total comes to around $2k. However, researchers from the NIH institute have been told that they can't attend because of the shutdown. Clearly this isn't about cost savings. One researcher was apparently planning on visiting relatives in the area after the meeting and asked if they could just go and do that instead (on their own dime) and they were told "no" and that it would be "bad if we found out that you went". So there you go. Makes little or no sense to me. Frankly, I find cordoning off memorials in DC to be similarly silly.
i can has wiki? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Purpose
the basic answer is that they do science experiments.
But that's a pretty vague list. It's more of a list of fields of research then actual outcomes. Of the few things where outcomes are listed (e.g. dark matter) it's not obvious why a manned station is needed to conduct the work.
And some pretty nice photos the astronauts take. Overall, though, I think I agree with you. Money could have been better spent elsewhere. Oh: you can also *see* it through a telescope. i.e. see the solar panels and stuff, which it is pretty cool.
I'm keen on astronomy and space exploration but I don't understand what the ISS is really for. Surely the billions that have been spent on it would have gone further had we directed them towards space probes or space telescopes? From what I can tell, it seems to be serve more of a diplomatic role than a scientific role.
...creosote soaked telephone pole wrapped in barbed wire and covered in rusty nails - SIDEWAYS.
So you don't like the new design, huh?
(see Apple biting themselves in the butt recently).
I'd love to. Where are the images?
Snowden was and continues to be at far higher risk of assassination than Malala.
I don't think that's true. At this point Snowden being free is just embarrassing to the US. He's apparently already given the press everything he knows so killing him isn't going to improve anything from the NSA's perspective. On the other hand, if Snowden meets with a peculiar "accident" then the US government just comes out of it looking bad. Malala, on the other hand, is more than just an embarrassment to the extremists who shot her. She has chosen to remain vocal for her cause and therefore represents a continuing threat because she acts a nucleation site for the more liberal attitudes they are seeking to suppress.
Animal scent is based on vibrations in molecules that dock to receptors in the nose. This allows detection of very low concentrations of molecules. Similar systems can now be created artificially.
There is no compelling evidence that scent (animal or our own) is based upon "vibrations", although such theories do exist. Instead, it seem that odorant molecules bind to receptors in the nose in an analogous way to that by other ligand/receptor pairs, such as neurotransmitters to neurotransmitter receptors. The difference seems to be the most odorant receptors types bind to a range of different odorants. An animal such as s rat has hundreds of different classes of odorant receptor, each of which binds to different sub-sets of odors and so sees the world through a different lens. We think it's by comparing the activities of these different classes that odor discrimination is achieved.
His consistent accuracy in predicting the consequences of disregarding Freedom is a great example of why you should listen to him.
And if you want to listen to him, here is the instruction manual on how to do so: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/pipermail/developers-public/2011-October/007647.html
If you're a researcher with some experience in writing code, you should ask you self, "should I spend that much time writing code, while a programmer does a better job in less time while it has also less bugs, will be reviewed and has unit tests"? Also, how much do you know about design patterns? Sure. Your code works without. Good luck with it. Also good luck with the headache in one year.
It usually doesn't work like that. The researcher does the experiments then analyses and interprets the data. If the latter process requires coding then the researcher does the coding. If a researcher gives up the coding to a programmer (who may have a bad understanding of the science) then they have lost ownership of their data. Besides, there's usually no money to pay a programmer. The only situation where a programmer is called for is in a big lab which needs one or more significant software projects created for things like complex data acquisition or controlling elaborate hardware. There you have a point: I've seen such projects undertaken by non-specialists and the results are hair-raising.
I have had to cleanup after some of these grads. I take great sadistic pleasure in throwing out two years of effort and rewriting it all from scratch in a couple of weeks.
Of course it's a lot easier and quicker to re-write someone's code when you already know what you're aiming at.
Or perhaps Perl's conciseness means that it requires fewer WTFs per line. In fact, one WTF per file would suffice.