Methane, Large sources of easily available water, or Oil. One of those three are the most likely.
Considering the focus on geology, it's also possible they've found a surface deposit of some rare earths minerals (such as those which are currently exported only by China), though you're right, methane is probably the most likely, and while geologists studying Mars might find it interesting, it's not nearly as significant to the rest of the human race.
Focus on geology? What else would you expect study of a planet to be focused on? That's what geology is.
Oil? Obviously you must be joking.
Oh, and rare earths aren't; rare earth ores are somewhat more so, but that is more a function of economics than anything else (an ore is an economically recoverable mineral resource; there are ample rare earth mineral resources around Earth, just not generally economic to recover - but that depends entirely on the price). No amount of rare earths on Mars are going to mean anything to anybody in economic terms until long after people are living there, if ever.
Two arbitrary lines in a 2D plane will meet with probability 1.0. Two arbitrary lines in 3D space will meet with probability 0.0. (In each case, the exceptions are vanishingly few relative to the norm.)
Of course, given one arbitrary line in 3D space there are an infinite number of (non-arbitrary) lines that intersect it.
Multiverses are considered one viable interpretation of quantum mechanics, why pass up a chance to check it out? Next to cost of another resource or power war against a brown-peopled non-christian country, the cost will be minuscule and no one will get hurt.
Because they aren't really checking it out. No matter what they find, it will neither confirm nor deny the plausibility of the multiverse interpretation. If they do find the distortion in CMB they are looking for, it only means that the multiverse hypothesis is one possible explanation for it. If they don't, it doesn't prove that the multiverse hypothesis is wrong. It isn't even really evidence of it. They may as well say they are trying to prove that god exists by looking at the indentations in the CMB where he gripped the universe and tossed it in the waste bin after finishing it.
The authors even say this in the article - their data neither confirms nor rejects the hypothesis.
I also like this bit -
“It’s a very hard statistical and computational problem to search for all possible radii of the collision imprints at any possible place in the sky,”
Basically, they've got lots of data but no real way of constraining what they are looking for - so they have developed an algorithm to go looking through all the data for all different sizes and shapes of anomalies, and wonder of wonders, they found a fit. If they bring a statistician or ten on board I might begin to give some credence to their methodology, but this very much sounds like a fishing expedition (but it's okay; their algorithm is advanced and won't get fooled like those other algorithms people use). Look for enough patterns in any given set of data and you will get a hit for any given level of confidence.
Why is it that videogames always seem to presume that a post-apocalyptic future will have no green? You know, even in the worst case scenario (and all-out nuclear war) there would still be plenty of plant life (unless you live in the desert or something). Hell, look at Chernobyl. That place got dumped with fallout and there is still a lovely forest there. Is it because everyone has seen Mad Max 2 and assumes that the Australian outback is what a post-apocalyptic future is SUPPOSED to look like?
I always assumed that the post-apocalyptic setting was favored for video games because it made the environments a lot easier to draw - sort of a built-in excuse for blandness and lack of creativity, with the desert or Outback-esque theme chosen so you don't have to worry about things like trees.
Why the bland post-apocalyptic setting is still favored I can only assume is due to inertia. People are used to it, so probably wouldn't find a vibrant green Chernobyl or Fukushima-esque environment believable.
So Zediva thought they could purchase a single DVD and re-broadcast the content to multiple customers, essentially relying on a very loose interpretation of the first sale doctrine and avoid paying the same licensing fees as Netflix or Amazon.
If the MPAA didn’t take them to court, then Amazon or Netflix or Redbox, hell the entire legitimate broadcast industry would have.
No. The person renting the video has exclusive use of the DVD (and DVD player) for the period of their rental, which would generally be about the length of the movie. Two people can't be watching the same movie at the same time unless Zediva purchased two copies of the video, just like a physical rental store. Except for the obvious savings because the rental period only lasts as long as the person is watching the video, and it is instantly "returned" when they are finished, it is no different in this respect than renting a physical disc from a brick-and-mortar.
Basically the same as Netflix video by mail, except instead of physically sending the discs through the mail all the discs are kept and played at a central location and only the output is streamed to the renter.
It appears that the judge in the case feels there is a clear-cut and legally established difference between renting the physical media and playing it in private, and renting the physical media in one location and broadcasting it to another, private location. Even though there is a physical disc dedicated to the person watching the video, the transmission of the video instead of the physical media makes it a public performance, and therefore requires a specific license agreement from the media's owner.
I do wonder if a similar argument could be used to upend the burgeoning cloud-based-player industry; on the one hand it seems like a similar theme, on the other the cloud-based player is only sending the the digital file that the seller is (presumably) licensed to distribute - there is no pesky original physical media that is supposed to be carted around, only the digital file.
It's the same thing that happened with the new Netflix web interface. You think they don't know it sucks for PC users? Damn right they know. They know and they just don't care, because their biggest customer base has shifted to "devices" that have different interface capabilities, and pleasing the PC user isn't worth the extra development cost.
Yeah, but the Netflix interface on my PS3 is even worse, so I'm just going to go with "Netlfix is clueless about how to create a decent interface, be it for console, PC, or toaster oven".
Elder Scrolls Oblivion on PC is exactly like this. Why the hell cant I click my mouse button to open the chest that I am pointing at instead of needing to reach over and press the "open chest" button. Or the "pick up item" button.
Reach over to the open chest button? Why not just map it to a button your finger is already right next to? If you are trying to open a chest you probably don't need to be moving at the same time. I thought Oblivion defaulted to 'E' being the open/use key, which is pretty damn easy to hit if you use the standard WASD for movement.
Also, as another poster said - you can remap it to whatever you want, mouse buttons included.
That said, Oblivion did have a pretty crappy console-riffic stock interface for things like inventory management. Fortunately there were ample mods available to make it much more PC-friendly; in fact, there mods to fix and/or completely change pretty much everything about the game. It stands as one of the great examples of why I much prefer to buy a game on PC than console.
I was very confused at first, as the first linked story suggests that the bill is requiring ISPs to collect credit card information, etc., in addition to logging the IP, but the text of the bill doesn't appear to state that. Likewise, the EFF article that is linked didn't say anything about it.
It appears that the confusion comes from a (rejected) amendment proposed by one of the people who voted against the bill. In the current form, the bill only requires that the IP be linked to the customer name. The rejected amendment would have explicitly prohibited further linking to information like billing address and credit card info. Since there is no prohibition against this, it appears that the concern is that ISPs will do this on their own.
I'm still not clear on this point; is the concern that the ISPs will just dump the IP lease info into an existing database with customer info, or is it that by putting the customer name in the logs this automatically opens up any other information maintained by the ISP on that customer to subpoena? Meaning, as it stands now (without this law), someone subpoenas the ISP for such and such IP at such and such date and time, the ISP responds that they don't log the name of the customer the IP was leased to so they can't provide any more information. If this law is passed, they now have the name of the customer who held the IP at the specified time - so at that point would law enforcement (or anyone else) be able to subpoena any other information the ISP has on the named customer? That is my reading of the situation, just curious if anyone can explain it more clearly and/or confirm/deny.
`(h) Retention of Certain Records- A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least 18 months the temporarily assigned network addresses the service assigns to each account, unless that address is transmitted by radio communication (as defined in section 3 of the Communications Act of 1934).'.
So, if I insert a wireless path between my cable modem and my router, the address would be transmitted by radio communication. Wouldn't this invalidate the rule? How would the ISP be aware that there is radio communication in the link?
No, because the ISP does't care what the internal IP address on your network is. To them, this only concerns the IP assigned to your modem.
Now, this does suggest that if you connect wirelessly to your ISP this section doesn't apply, but presumably there are (or will soon be) similar requirements appended to Section 3 of the Communications Act.
There is a strange thing that I have noticed after living in the US for a year: you guys behave very differently in traffic jams than people in the UK. People in the US tend to constantly accelerate and brake, accelerate and brake, stuttering their way along the road whereas people in the UK tend to stick it in a low gear and move along slowly but steadily. I suspect the latter is far more fuel efficient.
True. This is because in the U.S., if you allow a car length between you and the person in front of you then someone will merge in front of you; consequently, if you allow that much space to open up then you will never move again and you will be stuck in place forever. Alternately stomping on the accelerator and brake is our only way of ensuring our own survival.
I have decided that the reason for this is that you guys use automatic gearboxes whereas we use manual; changing gears takes effort so people are reluctant to keep changing them up and down.
Manual gearbox? What's that?
I actually prefer manual, but it is becoming very difficult to find them here in the U.S.. They are only available in the most basic entry-level configurations, fun but impractical roadsters, and (sometimes) expensive German sports sedans. It is getting very sad. I need to hurry up and buy a GTI or something before they drop the option from those as well.
A turbo 1.8L Passat isn't exactly a beacon of high mileage sedans. There are cars with engines that have twice the displacement of that engine with better mileage.
I second that. I have a Golf with the 1.8T, it gets atrocious mileage. It averages something like 23 mpg; on the highway it might get 25-26. Pretty bad. The newer 2.0T has ~33% more power and gets significantly better mileage, though. Too bad VW is currently on a cheapifying stint in their attempt to become the biggest automaker, or I'd be tempted to pick one up (actually I think the Golf is still intact, mostly just the Jetta in the US that is getting the cheapo treatment - but we just replaced the other car, so have to wait a couple years on the @!#! Golf - which I actually like aside from the bad mileage and awful transmission [my wife bought it before she learned to drive a manual]).
The end of the 2008 election gave us two good things: Obama in the White House, and McCain saying things that make sense again from time to time.
Yeah, I used to be a fan of McCain pre-election campaign. He used to be a sensible, moderate Republican. He seems to be very (VERY!) slowly moving back towards rational territory after his unfortunate excursion into fantasyland.
I think claim is that while the Tea Party see themselves as hobbits, the reality of modern politics and finance does not lend itself to fairy tale endings no matter how much the "hobbits" believe their righteous cause and unwillingness to compromise will prove themselves reluctant heroes. The Wall Street Journal was in fact claiming that they were clueless to reality and will greatly harm the Tea Party and Republican cause.
I think of them more as the Jar-Jar Binks of politics. Stupid, annoying, don't really add anything at all in the way of ideas, and ultimately responsible for the destruction of the Republic (well, not _really_, just the unwitting tool of those who sought said downfall).
I find it interesting that the U.S. is number 1 in usage (most unique IP's), but 14th in average connection speed. I would have thought the U.S. would have been a little bit better (speed-wise). China is #2 in both usage and speed. Interesting... Yet another area China will soon dominate the U.S. in (once they take the top spot in usage).
To me the most surprising thing was that U.S. average speed wasn't nearly as bad as my impression of it has been lately. Sure, South Korea has a significant advantage at ~14 mbps average, but other than that outlier the other nations ahead of the U.S. are in the 5.6-9 mbps range. Faster, but not really materially so - I don't think there is a lot you can do at 9 mbps that you can't do at 5.2 mbps. Yes, we still need to invest in faster speeds and expanding availability to more people, but at least from this metric we aren't as far behind as I thought.
I was also surprised not to see Finland in the top 10 - it seems like every time there is a discussion of broadband access and speeds someone brings up Finland as a shining example of good broadband availability in a relatively sparsely populated nation; apparently, at least from Akamai's view of the 'net, availability (or at least uptake) isn't nearly as extensive as some have suggested.
(Besides, it's not really 3D until you can move your head and see the parallax.)
I agree completely. Sadly, I have had the opportunity to work (and play) with just such a system. I say sadly because it completely spoiled me for the "3D" experience of films (haven't tried video games yet). The system I used incorporated active shutter glasses, head tracking with millimeter accuracy, was tailored specifically for the user (accounting for your specific eye separation and other parameters I don't recall - there was about a 5-10 minute calibration run-through for each new user to get it set up right), and projected on four walls so you could literally walk around objects to look at them from different angles.
Of course, it also cost about a million dollars at the time, so not exactly ready for home use. I assume you could build it for half that price today, probably less, but still not exactly cheap (and requires an entire room dedicated to it). Also, it only works for material you are rendering on the fly.
Slashdot Mirror
I bet they will say there is evidence of possible flowing water during the warmest months.
Er, I mean, that's what they did say.
And not one of you has mentioned "Doom"?
You all remember that takes place on Mars?
Maybe I'm too old to be here anymore. Get off my lawn!
No it doesn't. Deimos and/or Phobos, I don't really remember which. Moon(s) of Mars, not on Mars itself.
You could have just
Geologists -> Beer
As a geologist I second that.
Actually I prefer Beer -> Geologist, but it isn't quitting time yet.
Methane, Large sources of easily available water, or Oil. One of those three are the most likely.
Considering the focus on geology, it's also possible they've found a surface deposit of some rare earths minerals (such as those which are currently exported only by China), though you're right, methane is probably the most likely, and while geologists studying Mars might find it interesting, it's not nearly as significant to the rest of the human race.
Focus on geology? What else would you expect study of a planet to be focused on? That's what geology is.
Oil? Obviously you must be joking.
Oh, and rare earths aren't; rare earth ores are somewhat more so, but that is more a function of economics than anything else (an ore is an economically recoverable mineral resource; there are ample rare earth mineral resources around Earth, just not generally economic to recover - but that depends entirely on the price). No amount of rare earths on Mars are going to mean anything to anybody in economic terms until long after people are living there, if ever.
Two arbitrary lines in a 2D plane will meet with probability 1.0.
Two arbitrary lines in 3D space will meet with probability 0.0.
(In each case, the exceptions are vanishingly few relative to the norm.)
Of course, given one arbitrary line in 3D space there are an infinite number of (non-arbitrary) lines that intersect it.
I guess it all depends on your arbitrariness.
Multiverses are considered one viable interpretation of quantum mechanics, why pass up a chance to check it out? Next to cost of another resource or power war against a brown-peopled non-christian country, the cost will be minuscule and no one will get hurt.
Because they aren't really checking it out. No matter what they find, it will neither confirm nor deny the plausibility of the multiverse interpretation. If they do find the distortion in CMB they are looking for, it only means that the multiverse hypothesis is one possible explanation for it. If they don't, it doesn't prove that the multiverse hypothesis is wrong. It isn't even really evidence of it. They may as well say they are trying to prove that god exists by looking at the indentations in the CMB where he gripped the universe and tossed it in the waste bin after finishing it.
The authors even say this in the article - their data neither confirms nor rejects the hypothesis.
I also like this bit -
Basically, they've got lots of data but no real way of constraining what they are looking for - so they have developed an algorithm to go looking through all the data for all different sizes and shapes of anomalies, and wonder of wonders, they found a fit. If they bring a statistician or ten on board I might begin to give some credence to their methodology, but this very much sounds like a fishing expedition (but it's okay; their algorithm is advanced and won't get fooled like those other algorithms people use). Look for enough patterns in any given set of data and you will get a hit for any given level of confidence.
Next up, Wolverine's special two-part Bar Mitzvah issue! L'chaim!
If you think that will be fun, you should have seen the Bris edition!
I give up; how did they counter his mutant healing factor?
Why is it that videogames always seem to presume that a post-apocalyptic future will have no green? You know, even in the worst case scenario (and all-out nuclear war) there would still be plenty of plant life (unless you live in the desert or something). Hell, look at Chernobyl. That place got dumped with fallout and there is still a lovely forest there. Is it because everyone has seen Mad Max 2 and assumes that the Australian outback is what a post-apocalyptic future is SUPPOSED to look like?
I always assumed that the post-apocalyptic setting was favored for video games because it made the environments a lot easier to draw - sort of a built-in excuse for blandness and lack of creativity, with the desert or Outback-esque theme chosen so you don't have to worry about things like trees.
Why the bland post-apocalyptic setting is still favored I can only assume is due to inertia. People are used to it, so probably wouldn't find a vibrant green Chernobyl or Fukushima-esque environment believable.
People like rushing to snap judgements; the more outrageous the better.
Sarah Palin's people have come to reclaim her!?
What?! I thought Thrawn disowned her when she torpedoed the Tiger's Claw!
So Zediva thought they could purchase a single DVD and re-broadcast the content to multiple customers, essentially relying on a very loose interpretation of the first sale doctrine and avoid paying the same licensing fees as Netflix or Amazon.
If the MPAA didn’t take them to court, then Amazon or Netflix or Redbox, hell the entire legitimate broadcast industry would have.
No. The person renting the video has exclusive use of the DVD (and DVD player) for the period of their rental, which would generally be about the length of the movie. Two people can't be watching the same movie at the same time unless Zediva purchased two copies of the video, just like a physical rental store. Except for the obvious savings because the rental period only lasts as long as the person is watching the video, and it is instantly "returned" when they are finished, it is no different in this respect than renting a physical disc from a brick-and-mortar.
Basically the same as Netflix video by mail, except instead of physically sending the discs through the mail all the discs are kept and played at a central location and only the output is streamed to the renter.
It appears that the judge in the case feels there is a clear-cut and legally established difference between renting the physical media and playing it in private, and renting the physical media in one location and broadcasting it to another, private location. Even though there is a physical disc dedicated to the person watching the video, the transmission of the video instead of the physical media makes it a public performance, and therefore requires a specific license agreement from the media's owner.
I do wonder if a similar argument could be used to upend the burgeoning cloud-based-player industry; on the one hand it seems like a similar theme, on the other the cloud-based player is only sending the the digital file that the seller is (presumably) licensed to distribute - there is no pesky original physical media that is supposed to be carted around, only the digital file.
What they meant to write was UFO, an unidentified flightless object.
Or a UFFO - unidentified formerly floating object.
That's not Millenium Falcon. The galaxy is too far away. But it's clearly a Dralthi, Kilrathi medium fighter.
Lol, I was going to just say, "Kill....Rathi..." and see who got it; too late for that.
(At least, I think that's what the dying Kilrathi pilot said in Ultima 7)
It's the same thing that happened with the new Netflix web interface. You think they don't know it sucks for PC users? Damn right they know. They know and they just don't care, because their biggest customer base has shifted to "devices" that have different interface capabilities, and pleasing the PC user isn't worth the extra development cost.
Yeah, but the Netflix interface on my PS3 is even worse, so I'm just going to go with "Netlfix is clueless about how to create a decent interface, be it for console, PC, or toaster oven".
Elder Scrolls Oblivion on PC is exactly like this.
Why the hell cant I click my mouse button to open the chest that I am pointing at instead of needing to reach over and press the "open chest" button. Or the "pick up item" button.
Reach over to the open chest button? Why not just map it to a button your finger is already right next to? If you are trying to open a chest you probably don't need to be moving at the same time. I thought Oblivion defaulted to 'E' being the open/use key, which is pretty damn easy to hit if you use the standard WASD for movement.
Also, as another poster said - you can remap it to whatever you want, mouse buttons included.
That said, Oblivion did have a pretty crappy console-riffic stock interface for things like inventory management. Fortunately there were ample mods available to make it much more PC-friendly; in fact, there mods to fix and/or completely change pretty much everything about the game. It stands as one of the great examples of why I much prefer to buy a game on PC than console.
Radio signals can also be blocked by a hand. Just ask any iPhone4 user.
I was going to say that in the case of the iPhone the radio signals are being blocked by a prick, but in interest of my karma I won't.
Oops.
I was very confused at first, as the first linked story suggests that the bill is requiring ISPs to collect credit card information, etc., in addition to logging the IP, but the text of the bill doesn't appear to state that. Likewise, the EFF article that is linked didn't say anything about it.
It appears that the confusion comes from a (rejected) amendment proposed by one of the people who voted against the bill. In the current form, the bill only requires that the IP be linked to the customer name. The rejected amendment would have explicitly prohibited further linking to information like billing address and credit card info. Since there is no prohibition against this, it appears that the concern is that ISPs will do this on their own.
I'm still not clear on this point; is the concern that the ISPs will just dump the IP lease info into an existing database with customer info, or is it that by putting the customer name in the logs this automatically opens up any other information maintained by the ISP on that customer to subpoena? Meaning, as it stands now (without this law), someone subpoenas the ISP for such and such IP at such and such date and time, the ISP responds that they don't log the name of the customer the IP was leased to so they can't provide any more information. If this law is passed, they now have the name of the customer who held the IP at the specified time - so at that point would law enforcement (or anyone else) be able to subpoena any other information the ISP has on the named customer? That is my reading of the situation, just curious if anyone can explain it more clearly and/or confirm/deny.
`(h) Retention of Certain Records- A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least 18 months the temporarily assigned network addresses the service assigns to each account, unless that address is transmitted by radio communication (as defined in section 3 of the Communications Act of 1934).'.
So, if I insert a wireless path between my cable modem and my router, the address would be transmitted by radio communication. Wouldn't this invalidate the rule? How would the ISP be aware that there is radio communication in the link?
No, because the ISP does't care what the internal IP address on your network is. To them, this only concerns the IP assigned to your modem.
Now, this does suggest that if you connect wirelessly to your ISP this section doesn't apply, but presumably there are (or will soon be) similar requirements appended to Section 3 of the Communications Act.
There is a strange thing that I have noticed after living in the US for a year: you guys behave very differently in traffic jams than people in the UK. People in the US tend to constantly accelerate and brake, accelerate and brake, stuttering their way along the road whereas people in the UK tend to stick it in a low gear and move along slowly but steadily. I suspect the latter is far more fuel efficient.
True. This is because in the U.S., if you allow a car length between you and the person in front of you then someone will merge in front of you; consequently, if you allow that much space to open up then you will never move again and you will be stuck in place forever. Alternately stomping on the accelerator and brake is our only way of ensuring our own survival.
I have decided that the reason for this is that you guys use automatic gearboxes whereas we use manual; changing gears takes effort so people are reluctant to keep changing them up and down.
Manual gearbox? What's that?
I actually prefer manual, but it is becoming very difficult to find them here in the U.S.. They are only available in the most basic entry-level configurations, fun but impractical roadsters, and (sometimes) expensive German sports sedans. It is getting very sad. I need to hurry up and buy a GTI or something before they drop the option from those as well.
A turbo 1.8L Passat isn't exactly a beacon of high mileage sedans. There are cars with engines that have twice the displacement of that engine with better mileage.
I second that. I have a Golf with the 1.8T, it gets atrocious mileage. It averages something like 23 mpg; on the highway it might get 25-26. Pretty bad. The newer 2.0T has ~33% more power and gets significantly better mileage, though. Too bad VW is currently on a cheapifying stint in their attempt to become the biggest automaker, or I'd be tempted to pick one up (actually I think the Golf is still intact, mostly just the Jetta in the US that is getting the cheapo treatment - but we just replaced the other car, so have to wait a couple years on the @!#! Golf - which I actually like aside from the bad mileage and awful transmission [my wife bought it before she learned to drive a manual]).
Since apparently linking to the pages with the actual content in the summary is a no-no, here they are:
First, the Cnet article talking about the test that someone else did.
Next, the actual source article.
The end of the 2008 election gave us two good things: Obama in the White House, and McCain saying things that make sense again from time to time.
Yeah, I used to be a fan of McCain pre-election campaign. He used to be a sensible, moderate Republican. He seems to be very (VERY!) slowly moving back towards rational territory after his unfortunate excursion into fantasyland.
I think claim is that while the Tea Party see themselves as hobbits, the reality of modern politics and finance does not lend itself to fairy tale endings no matter how much the "hobbits" believe their righteous cause and unwillingness to compromise will prove themselves reluctant heroes. The Wall Street Journal was in fact claiming that they were clueless to reality and will greatly harm the Tea Party and Republican cause.
I think of them more as the Jar-Jar Binks of politics. Stupid, annoying, don't really add anything at all in the way of ideas, and ultimately responsible for the destruction of the Republic (well, not _really_, just the unwitting tool of those who sought said downfall).
I find it interesting that the U.S. is number 1 in usage (most unique IP's), but 14th in average connection speed. I would have thought the U.S. would have been a little bit better (speed-wise). China is #2 in both usage and speed. Interesting... Yet another area China will soon dominate the U.S. in (once they take the top spot in usage).
To me the most surprising thing was that U.S. average speed wasn't nearly as bad as my impression of it has been lately. Sure, South Korea has a significant advantage at ~14 mbps average, but other than that outlier the other nations ahead of the U.S. are in the 5.6-9 mbps range. Faster, but not really materially so - I don't think there is a lot you can do at 9 mbps that you can't do at 5.2 mbps. Yes, we still need to invest in faster speeds and expanding availability to more people, but at least from this metric we aren't as far behind as I thought.
I was also surprised not to see Finland in the top 10 - it seems like every time there is a discussion of broadband access and speeds someone brings up Finland as a shining example of good broadband availability in a relatively sparsely populated nation; apparently, at least from Akamai's view of the 'net, availability (or at least uptake) isn't nearly as extensive as some have suggested.
Anybody got odds on Yankees fans vs. NATO?
Well, the Yankees have a bigger budget, so they might be able to buy a victory.
On the other hand, NATO includes Poland, and you can never forget Poland. So there's that.
(Besides, it's not really 3D until you can move your head and see the parallax.)
I agree completely. Sadly, I have had the opportunity to work (and play) with just such a system. I say sadly because it completely spoiled me for the "3D" experience of films (haven't tried video games yet). The system I used incorporated active shutter glasses, head tracking with millimeter accuracy, was tailored specifically for the user (accounting for your specific eye separation and other parameters I don't recall - there was about a 5-10 minute calibration run-through for each new user to get it set up right), and projected on four walls so you could literally walk around objects to look at them from different angles.
Of course, it also cost about a million dollars at the time, so not exactly ready for home use. I assume you could build it for half that price today, probably less, but still not exactly cheap (and requires an entire room dedicated to it). Also, it only works for material you are rendering on the fly.