> They believed that science was a way to pull back the curtain on the mind of God.
And like in the Wizard of Oz, they are surprised to find there isn't really a wizard behind the curtain. Unfortunately, also like in the Wizard of Oz, even after seeing the wizard has no magic they still expect him to somehow deliver miracles.
> Pretty soon the tech will be sufficiently advanced that filmakers won't actually need those really expensive actor chappies. Yay:-)
Anyone who's seen 'I Am Legend' knows how far that is from happening. It was Will Smith vs. a bunch of CGI characters popping around the screen like video game sprites. When they yelled, their faces distorted beyond physical possibility; When they jumped they went from place A to place B on the screen without much concern for how far apart those places were supposed to be in the movie. The scene that really took me out of the suspension of disbelief was when the zombie basically took one step that moved him one leg length on my TV but he happened to start in a hallway on the ground floor and pop up to the top of the stairs on the second floor.
> takes in large quantities of water at ground temperature, say 12 degrees C, and compresses that heat into a tank of water (heating it to say 45-50 degrees C) and the water that returns to the ground will exit at something like 6-8 degrees C...
> A more layman style description can be made using orange squash. Imagine you have a large volume of orange squash...
I was having trouble following the process because I am unfamiliar with this "water" material you used in your example. Thank goodness you gave an analogy using "orange squash." Now the process is crystal clear because I am much more familiar with "orange squash" than water, as I'm sure is the case with most everyone reading this.
That reminds me of a nagging question I've had about ZFS. What if I have thousands of snapshots, most taking almost no space, and I find that I have one file that absolutely must be erased. Perhaps it is infringing on RIAA copyright or it is medical data covered by HIPAA or it is data from a litigation. If I delete the file, the data is still held by all the snapshots. Snapshots are read only, so I can't selectively delete that file from the snapshots without erasing all of my snapshots entirely!
A reasonable way to do this is to run Unison on all these computers. It is the only tool I've ever found that syncs everything including file deletes and directory changes.
I have a small batch file run every hour on all 4 of my Windows computers that Unison sync's about 4 Gigs of data between them. It uses the Rsync protocol to only send what has changed and it tracks deletions as well. Unison also runs on Linux and some others as well.
Keep in mind that this is great for backups and synchronizing but not to be used for protecting yourself from erasing files. If a file is erased on one computer when it syncs it will get erased from all of them. For that you should keep archival copies of files.
I love my current setup that syncs "My Documents" between a home computer, an office computer, a laptop, and a "backup" computer. Next I am going to change my "backup" computer into a Solaris ZFS file server so I can have hourly snapshots for little cost in time or disk space.
> Hey this stuff is great. Next time I leave my house and forget to turn off my television, I use my cell phone to turn off my home television while I'm away at the restaurant.
This stuff really IS great! Next time YOU leave your house I will use MY cellphone to turn everything on in your home while youre away at the restaurant. And I'll turn your TV off while your are watching it. I can't wait!
> it may be right, but for the wrong reasons. skin color isn't going to make a difference when being hit by a misaligned microwave beam. use white and brown eggs in your own microwave to test this theory.
Oh, he's right for the right reasons. The U.S. has a history of testing their weapons on brown people first.
I've always said there are only two kinds of secrets: the kind that only one person knows and the kind that everyone knows. The rest is just a matter of timing.
> In America, everything we watch has violence. You can't get away from it - go ahead, try to! (God forbid if a women's nipple is shown! Think of the children! It's OK for them to see someone get shot, though.)
This bothers me. I'd much rather have my children see a nude person than an act of violence. Censors are ok with decapitations, but won't allow a breast to pop out. Are they nuts?
Recently I showed my kids 'Clash of the Titans' and I found it refreshing that it showed a beautiful young woman walking nude. It was appropriate for the situation; There was nothing wrong with it. My kids didn't seem to find anything notworthy about it. I don't think that would pass today.
> Being able to quote some poetry or Shakespeare, for example, gets you +5 Interesting mod points from the girls, and nods of approval from everyone else
You must be fighting off the ladies! I think you are mistaking patronizing pats on the head for mod points, and nods of approval for nodding off.
All irrelevant to the average person who thinks about what needs to be done today and tomorrow, and maybe the next weekend.
If all the scientist dissapeared today, the repurcussions would be huge but not felt for several years or even decades. As long as Oprah is still on and beer is flowing the majority won't care.
> if you just need to save money, you can get POTS and an alternate LD carrier. the combined costs should be within a few dollars a month of vonage.
You've got to be kidding.
I pay $14.99/month for the lowest Vonage plan. That includes all my local and long distance calls. That includes voice mail, call waiting, call forwarding, etc etc etc. I have ONE phone number that simultaneously rings my home office, my 'real' office, and my cell phone. I have 3 rings to pick up any of those, otherwise it goes to voicemail.
I can configure these features with a click of a button.
On my old Verizon POTS line it took 2 weeks, almost $100 in setup charges, and a monthly fee to get voicemail.
I will miss Vonage very much if they go.
My local cable company (Optimum) now offers a similar VOIP service for twice the price. Better than POTS, but not as good as Vonage.
> Would a device like this work on someone who doesn't know how to speak english or better yet a baby that speaks no language at all, if so then we just invented the universal translator, live long and prosper trekkies
Yes it certainly would. The device works by directly picking up the intent of the subject in a global individual-neutral format. That intent is then translated into English by dictionary lookup and standard text-to-speech software. It would be a trivial matter to subsitiute any other language besides English. As an interesting side-note, since the device directly reads a persons thoughts and intent it can also function as a lie-detector, dream interpreter, and as a therapist.
> you would need to do some sort of heroic measure of training for each individual
Not be be callous, but I'm pretty sure they can find time in their busy eating, sleeping, and bedpan changing schedules in order to regain the ability to communicate with the world.
> This kind of research obviously would lead to, a few years down the road, a type of electronic telepathy.
Yes, think of the progression:
- Improve detection to the point it can accurately detect thought-sounds - Instead of translating the sounds into audible sounds, trasmit them wirelessly (transmitting) - Implant wireless receiver that injects sound-signals into brain for receiving - AI spontaneously emerges and takes over subject's brain, becoming the first of our neural-implant overlords!
I hate the media with their artificial sensation causing slants... "Common Cold Season To Start - Will You Die?"
What adult has an extra 25 hours a week to play video games? I run a business, I'm raising 3 kids, I try to have some time with my wife. I'm lucky if I get to play an hour or two of games a week. Plus my kids don't WANT me sitting in their room all weekend playing video games with them.
I'd rather them playing games than passively watching TV though.
> It is not yet known if it will be possible to emulate the required hardware to run the OS.
Turing disagrees.
Re:S.E.T.I: We're not advanced enough!
on
Is SETI Worth It?
·
· Score: 1
Good points.
The more efficient a signal is, the more it looks like noise. Compare a bitmap file to a JPG file for example. If they have much more advanced signal processing algorithms it would be practically indistinguishable from background noise.
Yes, I see now. It works with Finder and some key applications - which is great. But I thought it would work with ANY application, even ones that weren't specifically "time machine" aware.
So if you wrote a nice Nautilus integration and an API for other apps to access "Time Warped" files that would be equivelant to what Apple has done (within the limits that you don't have control over the other apps)
> i do plan on adding the "damn gotta get me that" user-friendliness.
Well, if you are serious about adding functionality like Time Machine, please realize that doesn't mean a prettier interface. That means you are adding a window menu option to every application window to enable browsing the backup archives. When the user chooses that option, you must trap every file system interaction from the processes in that application and serve up data from the archive instead of from the "live" disk. You must do this to an application right in the middle of it's execution substituting it's already open file handles for your own and preserving the state of every open file somehow even though they are now connected to different files...
It boggles my mind how Apple did this...
Unless Time Machine only works with certain modified applications, and not any and every application?
Slashdot Mirror
> They believed that science was a way to pull back the curtain on the mind of God.
And like in the Wizard of Oz, they are surprised to find there isn't really a wizard behind the curtain.
Unfortunately, also like in the Wizard of Oz, even after seeing the wizard has no magic they still expect him to somehow deliver miracles.
> Pretty soon the tech will be sufficiently advanced that filmakers won't actually need those really expensive actor chappies. Yay :-)
Anyone who's seen 'I Am Legend' knows how far that is from happening.
It was Will Smith vs. a bunch of CGI characters popping around the screen like video game sprites.
When they yelled, their faces distorted beyond physical possibility; When they jumped they went from place A to place B on the screen without much concern for how far apart those places were supposed to be in the movie.
The scene that really took me out of the suspension of disbelief was when the zombie basically took one step that moved him one leg length on my TV but he happened to start in a hallway on the ground floor and pop up to the top of the stairs on the second floor.
Go back to hiring actors, Hollywood.
Interested parties across the nation are thanking the White House for saving trees as they download and PRINT the budget.
> takes in large quantities of water at ground temperature, say 12 degrees C, and compresses that heat into a tank of water (heating it to say 45-50 degrees C) and the water that returns to the ground will exit at something like 6-8 degrees C...
> A more layman style description can be made using orange squash. Imagine you have a large volume of orange squash...
I was having trouble following the process because I am unfamiliar with this "water" material you used in your example. Thank goodness you gave an analogy using "orange squash." Now the process is crystal clear because I am much more familiar with "orange squash" than water, as I'm sure is the case with most everyone reading this.
That reminds me of a nagging question I've had about ZFS.
What if I have thousands of snapshots, most taking almost no space, and I find that I have one file that absolutely must be erased. Perhaps it is infringing on RIAA copyright or it is medical data covered by HIPAA or it is data from a litigation. If I delete the file, the data is still held by all the snapshots. Snapshots are read only, so I can't selectively delete that file from the snapshots without erasing all of my snapshots entirely!
Is this accurate? How would one get around this?
A reasonable way to do this is to run Unison on all these computers. It is the only tool I've ever found that syncs everything including file deletes and directory changes.
I have a small batch file run every hour on all 4 of my Windows computers that Unison sync's about 4 Gigs of data between them. It uses the Rsync protocol to only send what has changed and it tracks deletions as well. Unison also runs on Linux and some others as well.
Keep in mind that this is great for backups and synchronizing but not to be used for protecting yourself from erasing files. If a file is erased on one computer when it syncs it will get erased from all of them.
For that you should keep archival copies of files.
I love my current setup that syncs "My Documents" between a home computer, an office computer, a laptop, and a "backup" computer.
Next I am going to change my "backup" computer into a Solaris ZFS file server so I can have hourly snapshots for little cost in time or disk space.
> Hey this stuff is great. Next time I leave my house and forget to turn off my television, I use my cell phone to turn off my home television while I'm away at the restaurant.
This stuff really IS great! Next time YOU leave your house I will use MY cellphone to turn everything on in your home while youre away at the restaurant. And I'll turn your TV off while your are watching it. I can't wait!
> it may be right, but for the wrong reasons. skin color isn't going to make a difference when being hit by a misaligned microwave beam. use white and brown eggs in your own microwave to test this theory.
Oh, he's right for the right reasons.
The U.S. has a history of testing their weapons on brown people first.
I've always said there are only two kinds of secrets: the kind that only one person knows and the kind that everyone knows. The rest is just a matter of timing.
Two comments:
1. When every service and product on Earth is given away for free to support advertising, I wonder what will be left to advertise...
2. Mr. Albert Einstein, when practicing ancient science, disagrees with your sig.
> In America, everything we watch has violence. You can't get away from it - go ahead, try to! (God forbid if a women's nipple is shown! Think of the children! It's OK for them to see someone get shot, though.)
This bothers me. I'd much rather have my children see a nude person than an act of violence. Censors are ok with decapitations, but won't allow a breast to pop out. Are they nuts?
Recently I showed my kids 'Clash of the Titans' and I found it refreshing that it showed a beautiful young woman walking nude. It was appropriate for the situation; There was nothing wrong with it. My kids didn't seem to find anything notworthy about it. I don't think that would pass today.
> Being able to quote some poetry or Shakespeare, for example, gets you +5 Interesting mod points from the girls, and nods of approval from everyone else
You must be fighting off the ladies!
I think you are mistaking patronizing pats on the head for mod points, and nods of approval for nodding off.
All irrelevant to the average person who thinks about what needs to be done today and tomorrow, and maybe the next weekend.
If all the scientist dissapeared today, the repurcussions would be huge but not felt for several years or even decades.
As long as Oprah is still on and beer is flowing the majority won't care.
> if you just need to save money, you can get POTS and an alternate LD carrier.
the combined costs should be within a few dollars a month of vonage.
You've got to be kidding.
I pay $14.99/month for the lowest Vonage plan. That includes all my local and long distance calls. That includes voice mail, call waiting, call forwarding, etc etc etc. I have ONE phone number that simultaneously rings my home office, my 'real' office, and my cell phone. I have 3 rings to pick up any of those, otherwise it goes to voicemail.
I can configure these features with a click of a button.
On my old Verizon POTS line it took 2 weeks, almost $100 in setup charges, and a monthly fee to get voicemail.
I will miss Vonage very much if they go.
My local cable company (Optimum) now offers a similar VOIP service for twice the price. Better than POTS, but not as good as Vonage.
> Would a device like this work on someone who doesn't know how to speak english or better yet a baby that speaks no language at all, if so then we just invented the universal translator, live long and prosper trekkies
Yes it certainly would. The device works by directly picking up the intent of the subject in a global individual-neutral format. That intent is then translated into English by dictionary lookup and standard text-to-speech software. It would be a trivial matter to subsitiute any other language besides English.
As an interesting side-note, since the device directly reads a persons thoughts and intent it can also function as a lie-detector, dream interpreter, and as a therapist.
You sir, have a gift.
> you would need to do some sort of heroic measure of training for each individual
Not be be callous, but I'm pretty sure they can find time in their busy eating, sleeping, and bedpan changing schedules in order to regain the ability to communicate with the world.
> This kind of research obviously would lead to, a few years down the road, a type of electronic telepathy.
Yes, think of the progression:
- Improve detection to the point it can accurately detect thought-sounds
- Instead of translating the sounds into audible sounds, trasmit them wirelessly (transmitting)
- Implant wireless receiver that injects sound-signals into brain for receiving
- AI spontaneously emerges and takes over subject's brain, becoming the first of our neural-implant overlords!
secret numbers appearing on T-shirts in Finland in 3.. 2.. 1..
I've had a Scooter for a couple of years. It's great - comfortable, adjustable, light.
I use it all the time.
I hate the media with their artificial sensation causing slants... "Common Cold Season To Start - Will You Die?"
What adult has an extra 25 hours a week to play video games? I run a business, I'm raising 3 kids, I try to have some time with my wife. I'm lucky if I get to play an hour or two of games a week.
Plus my kids don't WANT me sitting in their room all weekend playing video games with them.
I'd rather them playing games than passively watching TV though.
> It is not yet known if it will be possible to emulate the required hardware to run the OS.
Turing disagrees.
Good points.
The more efficient a signal is, the more it looks like noise. Compare a bitmap file to a JPG file for example. If they have much more advanced signal processing algorithms it would be practically indistinguishable from background noise.
> why we didn't _eat_ the conquered
http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html
Yes, I see now. It works with Finder and some key applications - which is great. But I thought it would work with ANY application, even ones that weren't specifically "time machine" aware.
So if you wrote a nice Nautilus integration and an API for other apps to access "Time Warped" files that would be equivelant to what Apple has done (within the limits that you don't have control over the other apps)
> i do plan on adding the "damn gotta get me that" user-friendliness.
Well, if you are serious about adding functionality like Time Machine, please realize that doesn't mean a prettier interface. That means you are adding a window menu option to every application window to enable browsing the backup archives. When the user chooses that option, you must trap every file system interaction from the processes in that application and serve up data from the archive instead of from the "live" disk. You must do this to an application right in the middle of it's execution substituting it's already open file handles for your own and preserving the state of every open file somehow even though they are now connected to different files...
It boggles my mind how Apple did this...
Unless Time Machine only works with certain modified applications, and not any and every application?