In general, everybody dealing with computers can benefit from a bit of programming knowledge, not only admins. The rule of thumb is: if you're doing a repetitive, braindead job, you're doing it wrong. Computers are built to do exactly that. A small script can automate a lot of work for you, if you have that skill it can help you tremendously.
I recently heard that DARPA projects don't necessarily need to be military related, and that research in the US is traditionally heavily sponsored by the military. In this contract I suspect the goal is not to make some military application, but to get more people interested in SDR and DSP. There might be some shortage in knowledgeable people in this field.
I guess that having a high dynamic range can be useful if you are sampling at a large bandwidth: in such a case you will probably be receiving multiple transmissions, if you get a very strong signal and a very weak one, how are you correctly going to sample them simultaneously? Compare it with HDR photography: normally you'd say it's overkill, but it does allow you to see detail in darker regions in an otherwise bright photo.
However, you are correct in that you can increase the resolution by downsampling (delta-sigma modulation if I'm correct)..
Thinking about it further, it might be possible if you make it totally unusable. (No you can't install a browser (are you NUTS?), no you can't download a file, no you can't run a server, no you can't do anything, get away from my keyboard you LUSER!). Should be great fun.
I'm going to die this year? And what happened to my teenage years? I'm confused and frightened! Now I'll have to go and cry because of my imminent death AND some nobody called me a twit on/. for no apparent reason... what a horrible day!
I know a few Iranian students, and from what I can tell, there is a *huge* gap between the people and the government in Iran. While the leaders are frantically screaming and warmongering, the population just sighs, shake their heads, and go on living. The petty rules are simply ignored whenever they can. Civil disobedience is a national hobby. I love that attitude. This is especially true in the larger cities that are more modern than you might think.
This is really, really good news. Because if anyone of the CIA or something like that would have been involved, corpses would have been found in local creeks. So now that everything is fine, we can all go to rest, knowing everything is all right.
PS: Please everyone please send me your cellphone number. Thanks!
Thank you for the reply. I do appreciate you're not the dumb kind of theist and genuinely try to make sense of your point of view. Some points you made were really interesting. I wish I could go deeper into this, but I'm sorry to say that due to personal events unfolding, I won't have much time to delve into it for the next weeks:(. I did manage to read your document though. Maybe some remarks I'd like to make: I have this eery feeling that if you do the math, there are some real problems that need to be explained from your side: one thing is the cratering (not only of the moon but of other celestial bodies).. if all these craters happened to be impacts of the last thousands of years, would there have been enough time to dissipate away all the heat? Another is about the flooding theory: If biblical accounts are correct, then you'd get a world-wide flood in 40 days of rain. That makes 8000m/40 days = 200m of rainfall per day. World-wide. Quite hefty I'd say. Have you considered what the air pressure before that event would have been, and also, how much condensation energy would have been released by turning vapour into rain? If you can't answer these questions directly, I wont hold it against you, as the discussion will have to wind down, I will be over my ears in work.
theists: (proof that (god = true)) = true agnostics: (proof that (god = true)) = unknown atheists: (proof that (god = true)) = false
Sure, I admit that we can argue about definitions, but that's how I see it. The correct way to handle this is: tell me what your definition of (theist/agnostic/atheist) is, and I'll tell you where I fit.
But the thing is, we have these instruments called telescopes, and you can look at star nurseries where stars are being formed, you can see stars exploding, etc. And now we can even see accretion disks around young stars with some object sweeping up dust as they move along it (proto-planets). So this is a big hint as to how things work. Accretion is happening. Sorry but I really can't wrap my head around your point of view. If you are correct then things should either be really very different from what we observe, or some thousands of years ago everything should have popped into existence in a way that deliberately hides the fact that these were created at that time. All of a sudden, earth would be here, with layered sediments, a moon full of craters, light streaming in from non-existent stars and galaxies, creating them as our horizon deepens, gravity fields already in place while we await for the actual gravity fields to arrive, etc. I could go on and on, but you should get the point by now. And then, this creator forgot about making Titan look old. Hmm.. Call me gullible, but I think there is a better explanation than that to explain Titan's atmosphere.
PS: to anyone moderating, could you please stop modding MadFan down, I'm trying to have a discussion here, this is a rather old thread by now so please, don't waste your points on it. (if you insist, mod me up instead:-))
That explains at least why you claimed that Titan is thousands of years old. If it was formed thousands of years ago, it would still be forming today, since those processes of accretion don't operate on such small timescales. Not to mention that it would still be quite hot. It's only sensible if you believe some sort of fairy with a magical wand came by and poofed it into existence. Which is fine by me, but I see no reason to jump to that conclusion.
Slashdot Mirror
In general, everybody dealing with computers can benefit from a bit of programming knowledge, not only admins. The rule of thumb is: if you're doing a repetitive, braindead job, you're doing it wrong. Computers are built to do exactly that. A small script can automate a lot of work for you, if you have that skill it can help you tremendously.
I recently heard that DARPA projects don't necessarily need to be military related, and that research in the US is traditionally heavily sponsored by the military. In this contract I suspect the goal is not to make some military application, but to get more people interested in SDR and DSP. There might be some shortage in knowledgeable people in this field.
I guess that having a high dynamic range can be useful if you are sampling at a large bandwidth: in such a case you will probably be receiving multiple transmissions, if you get a very strong signal and a very weak one, how are you correctly going to sample them simultaneously? Compare it with HDR photography: normally you'd say it's overkill, but it does allow you to see detail in darker regions in an otherwise bright photo.
However, you are correct in that you can increase the resolution by downsampling (delta-sigma modulation if I'm correct)..
Feel free to correct me if I'm talking nonsense.
Thinking about it further, it might be possible if you make it totally unusable. (No you can't install a browser (are you NUTS?), no you can't download a file, no you can't run a server, no you can't do anything, get away from my keyboard you LUSER!). Should be great fun.
This will fly right until the first exploit, after which all belief will be broken. I'm in an optimistic mood: I'll give it a year.
Mr2cents
Twit (1998-2012)
I'm going to die this year? And what happened to my teenage years? I'm confused and frightened! /. for no apparent reason... what a horrible day!
Now I'll have to go and cry because of my imminent death AND some nobody called me a twit on
I know a few Iranian students, and from what I can tell, there is a *huge* gap between the people and the government in Iran. While the leaders are frantically screaming and warmongering, the population just sighs, shake their heads, and go on living. The petty rules are simply ignored whenever they can. Civil disobedience is a national hobby. I love that attitude. This is especially true in the larger cities that are more modern than you might think.
This could have been the USA sooo easily...
And what about the children?
This is really, really good news. Because if anyone of the CIA or something like that would have been involved, corpses would have been found in local creeks. So now that everything is fine, we can all go to rest, knowing everything is all right.
PS: Please everyone please send me your cellphone number. Thanks!
Ah, so you're a waffle man!
This is very, very embarrassing, slashdot. Not even recognising a Red Dwarf reference... sigh, slashdot is really going downhill.
Does anyone want any toast?
Thank you for the reply. I do appreciate you're not the dumb kind of theist and genuinely try to make sense of your point of view. Some points you made were really interesting. I wish I could go deeper into this, but I'm sorry to say that due to personal events unfolding, I won't have much time to delve into it for the next weeks :(. I did manage to read your document though.
Maybe some remarks I'd like to make: I have this eery feeling that if you do the math, there are some real problems that need to be explained from your side: one thing is the cratering (not only of the moon but of other celestial bodies).. if all these craters happened to be impacts of the last thousands of years, would there have been enough time to dissipate away all the heat?
Another is about the flooding theory: If biblical accounts are correct, then you'd get a world-wide flood in 40 days of rain. That makes 8000m/40 days = 200m of rainfall per day. World-wide. Quite hefty I'd say. Have you considered what the air pressure before that event would have been, and also, how much condensation energy would have been released by turning vapour into rain?
If you can't answer these questions directly, I wont hold it against you, as the discussion will have to wind down, I will be over my ears in work.
Cheers,
Mr2Cents.
Or you can look at it from a meta-level:
theists: (proof that (god = true)) = true
agnostics: (proof that (god = true)) = unknown
atheists: (proof that (god = true)) = false
Sure, I admit that we can argue about definitions, but that's how I see it. The correct way to handle this is: tell me what your definition of (theist/agnostic/atheist) is, and I'll tell you where I fit.
But the thing is, we have these instruments called telescopes, and you can look at star nurseries where stars are being formed, you can see stars exploding, etc. And now we can even see accretion disks around young stars with some object sweeping up dust as they move along it (proto-planets). So this is a big hint as to how things work. Accretion is happening. Sorry but I really can't wrap my head around your point of view. If you are correct then things should either be really very different from what we observe, or some thousands of years ago everything should have popped into existence in a way that deliberately hides the fact that these were created at that time. All of a sudden, earth would be here, with layered sediments, a moon full of craters, light streaming in from non-existent stars and galaxies, creating them as our horizon deepens, gravity fields already in place while we await for the actual gravity fields to arrive, etc. I could go on and on, but you should get the point by now. And then, this creator forgot about making Titan look old. Hmm.. Call me gullible, but I think there is a better explanation than that to explain Titan's atmosphere.
PS: to anyone moderating, could you please stop modding MadFan down, I'm trying to have a discussion here, this is a rather old thread by now so please, don't waste your points on it. (if you insist, mod me up instead :-))
Please recalculate. A nice thing to remember is that 1 ns corresponds to ~30 cm at the speed of light.
That explains at least why you claimed that Titan is thousands of years old. If it was formed thousands of years ago, it would still be forming today, since those processes of accretion don't operate on such small timescales. Not to mention that it would still be quite hot. It's only sensible if you believe some sort of fairy with a magical wand came by and poofed it into existence. Which is fine by me, but I see no reason to jump to that conclusion.
Oh, you're a creationist?
Are you joking or trolling?
Let me just make a bold guess here... The company that sponsored the study offers solutions to his problem, right?
The latest video of MrDeity reminded me of your posts.
Making an argument from ignorance has nothing to do with wisdom.
I can't discuss with you any further, since that would be an appeal to authority. Bye.
What you just did is called a straw man fallacy.