I didn't notice the -dumpstream option in the mplayer manpage. And here I was using "mimms", which is kinda one-codec. Thanks! (And it's not working for me either; I think it's been slashdotted.)
When I see something like this, or like that NSF survey of public understanding of science and technology, which contains some howlers (more than half of Americans--and Europeans!--think that lasers work by focusing sound waves, and more than half of Americans think that early humans lived alongside dinosaurs)... I can't help but be confused. I know this stuff; why don't most people? Any explanation along the lines of, "well, I'm a brilliant ubermensch, of course!" is ridiculous; what are the odds of that?
So, I'm confused. How do people never bother to learn to read, or to do math? How is it that these things are considered so unimportant? How did I end up valuing such different things?
If you've gotten a credit card offer recently, there's a medium-sized standard box they include on the black-and-white legalese page which tells you the real (not introductory) interest rate, for instance.
Despite this, some people will briefly glance at the color glossy flyer, see "ZERO PERCENT (introductory) INTEREST!" and be shocked, yes, shocked, when the rates hop to twenty-seven percent or something ridiculous like that.
Check section 15.1.3 of the ECMA standard, which the source refers to. The algorithm is explained there, and the variable names are taken from the standard for readability.
If I remember my queueing theory, which I don't really, the qualitative answer is that one slowpoke can stop traffic for everyone and cause a tremendous backup in the second case, but not in the first. I used to have quantitative information about this sort of thing, but it's late and I've forgotten everything.
Are you even paying attention? My MAC address is not inherently connected to my name or identity by a massive process such as the Wal-Mart receipt and credit/debit card database. My MAC address is not readably by the nearest lamppost as I walk down the street. My MAC address isn't even readable by anyone who's not on my local network segment.
And a model no. + serial no. DOESN'T uniquely identify an instance of an item somehow? Bought a laptop lately? Check the serial no. on the back, it will almost certainly be unique to that laptop.
But that's not the same sort of problem. My laptop's serial number is not encoded in any discernible way in my system's software (I wiped the bundled software when I got it); if I walk down the street, my movements cannot be tracked by it. When the laptop is turned off and sitting in its briefcase, it is nontrivial to read its serial number.
There is no real feasible way to do the orwellian thing with RFID in consumer products without some ridiculously huge database and infrastructure as well as cooperation between millions of seperate stores, govt, competing producers etc etc.
My point is that the ridiculously huge database you hand-wave away already exists. Consider a receipt from my local Wal-Mart. It has a unique number on it, so that they can, if I return something, pull up the record of the transaction. This transaction, if I used a credit or debit card, has my name on it. Currently, serial numbers are not on this transaction record, because it would be difficult to put them on it; they're not on the barcodes. However, moving to RFIDs would make it trivial to do so. Thus, we have a link between the consumer and the purchased item.
If you recall, the TIA program was to fuse government and commercial databases. The idea isn't so far-fetched.
The same FUD was spread when barcode readers and credit cards came into play. When the government starts trying to implant an RFID chip in my neck and IS installing readers in every lampost I'll be one of the first to freak out and make a big fuss, but untill then I'm gunna go ahead and be content with accepting RFID for what it is; another useful technology making life easier and the world more efficient.
RFIDs are not barcodes. They contain enough data to uniquely identify not only every item on the shelf, but every instance of that item. This is the difference between a 12-digit UPC and a 512-byte passive RFID.
If a sale is made, and you pay with an identifying method, such as a credit or debit card, or even a supermarket affinity card, that particular item is now linked to your identity. This is why the increased data capacity of RFIDs is meaningful.
And, of course, this means that if a major metropolitan area decides to put RFID readers in its lamp posts, it can track the movements of its citizens--not all, but enough of them--by the RFIDs in their pants as they walk by.
But you think this is no more dangerous than a barcode?
Buffy's season seven was interminable self-parodying dreck. Yeah, it had its high points, but at that point Joss had moved on to other projects. The endings of seasons three and five were much better endpoints for the series. (Though I'll admit some fondness for the very, very down ending of season two.)
Could you quantify the ratio of energy we get from the sun compared to energy we get from that cosmic background radiation? Now, it's quite true that the sun is radiating its energy into the black, but I don't think you'll be extracting much usable energy from CBR, which was the original point of this thread.
And here I thought the President had a monopoly on shooting the messenger.
Look, there was a story there. A valid story, about Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. A story that we won't get to hear or see now, because it's all been tarred with the fake-memo brush. Because Mapes and Rather thought the story wasn't quite good enough, they sexed it up... with faked evidence. How responsible were they? Well, they clearly didn't show the diligence that they were paid for.
And somehow you're saying it's the fault of Little Green Footballs that the memos were fakes? If I were a left-wing partisan hack, I'd be furious at Mapes and Rather for killing the TANG story. A six year old could have showed that they were fake. You're only embarrassing yourself by claiming otherwise.
I read it in early high school, and loved it, though I didn't know why. Re-read it this year, and felt very... unsettled, and didn't know exactly why.
I think the original poster may have been referring to Stilson and Bonzo. Ender beats them both to death, remember? And through some authorial legerdemain, it's not really his fault and he gets to feel real bad about it because, y'know, they made him do it. That didn't strike you as a bit of a stacked deck on Card's part?
Ender doesn't get to have his cake and eat it too - he spends the rest of his very long life atoning for his cake-eating.
I thought you were discussing Ender's Game, not the interminable list of sequels, or even the tacked-on abortive second novel in the last fifteen pages. Taken on its own, the book makes Ender into a hero for committing his genocide--and he's also the victim, because he was manipulated into it.
The reason it's so vital to the plot to have Ender get picked on and retaliate beyond all possible reason (it's a tribute to Card's writing chops that we don't notice that the murders of Stilson and Bonzo are, well, kinda psychopathic) is that it's an adolescent revenge fantasy, with its dials all cranked to eleven.
Consider that a kid who seldom fights and is smaller than his opponents invariably manages to beat them to death. He conquers every obstacle before him, commits murder and genocide, and yet is the object of the book's compassion. Who wouldn't want to be an ultraviolent martyr like that?
Indeed, I think the angsty eighth-grader audience will be key for this movie, as well as every maladjusted geek who never got over getting picked on in high school and wishes he could go Columbine on the folks who made him miserable back in the day.
Slashdot Mirror
And, on the flip side, how was Graves at understanding technology?
Ah, so that's how we're spelling "playing Everquest" today.
I didn't notice the -dumpstream option in the mplayer manpage. And here I was using "mimms", which is kinda one-codec. Thanks! (And it's not working for me either; I think it's been slashdotted.)
I don't understand. How can you use a ruler improperly?
You mean GRE, not SAT, right?
When I see something like this, or like that NSF survey of public understanding of science and technology, which contains some howlers (more than half of Americans--and Europeans!--think that lasers work by focusing sound waves, and more than half of Americans think that early humans lived alongside dinosaurs)... I can't help but be confused. I know this stuff; why don't most people? Any explanation along the lines of, "well, I'm a brilliant ubermensch, of course!" is ridiculous; what are the odds of that?
So, I'm confused. How do people never bother to learn to read, or to do math? How is it that these things are considered so unimportant? How did I end up valuing such different things?
If you've gotten a credit card offer recently, there's a medium-sized standard box they include on the black-and-white legalese page which tells you the real (not introductory) interest rate, for instance.
Despite this, some people will briefly glance at the color glossy flyer, see "ZERO PERCENT (introductory) INTEREST!" and be shocked, yes, shocked, when the rates hop to twenty-seven percent or something ridiculous like that.
Check section 15.1.3 of the ECMA standard, which the source refers to. The algorithm is explained there, and the variable names are taken from the standard for readability.
Sheesh, do a little homework first.
If I remember my queueing theory, which I don't really, the qualitative answer is that one slowpoke can stop traffic for everyone and cause a tremendous backup in the second case, but not in the first. I used to have quantitative information about this sort of thing, but it's late and I've forgotten everything.
Are you even paying attention? My MAC address is not inherently connected to my name or identity by a massive process such as the Wal-Mart receipt and credit/debit card database. My MAC address is not readably by the nearest lamppost as I walk down the street. My MAC address isn't even readable by anyone who's not on my local network segment.
How is this in any fashion comparable?
And a model no. + serial no. DOESN'T uniquely identify an instance of an item somehow? Bought a laptop lately? Check the serial no. on the back, it will almost certainly be unique to that laptop.
But that's not the same sort of problem. My laptop's serial number is not encoded in any discernible way in my system's software (I wiped the bundled software when I got it); if I walk down the street, my movements cannot be tracked by it. When the laptop is turned off and sitting in its briefcase, it is nontrivial to read its serial number.
There is no real feasible way to do the orwellian thing with RFID in consumer products without some ridiculously huge database and infrastructure as well as cooperation between millions of seperate stores, govt, competing producers etc etc.
My point is that the ridiculously huge database you hand-wave away already exists. Consider a receipt from my local Wal-Mart. It has a unique number on it, so that they can, if I return something, pull up the record of the transaction. This transaction, if I used a credit or debit card, has my name on it. Currently, serial numbers are not on this transaction record, because it would be difficult to put them on it; they're not on the barcodes. However, moving to RFIDs would make it trivial to do so. Thus, we have a link between the consumer and the purchased item.
If you recall, the TIA program was to fuse government and commercial databases. The idea isn't so far-fetched.
The same FUD was spread when barcode readers and credit cards came into play.
When the government starts trying to implant an RFID chip in my neck and IS installing readers in every lampost I'll be one of the first to freak out and make a big fuss, but untill then I'm gunna go ahead and be content with accepting RFID for what it is; another useful technology making life easier and the world more efficient.
I'd say it'd be a bit late at that point.
You mean like Technicolor? Or like Autochrome? Or like three-CCD analog camcorders, digital cameras, and digital camcorders?
Pshaw. Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii did it first.
First, what does [apple]-shift-3 do? Apparently in Panther it takes a screenshot, but why is that cool enough to get tattooed on your neck?
And second, why on earth is this so hot? Mmmmf.
RFIDs are not barcodes. They contain enough data to uniquely identify not only every item on the shelf, but every instance of that item. This is the difference between a 12-digit UPC and a 512-byte passive RFID.
If a sale is made, and you pay with an identifying method, such as a credit or debit card, or even a supermarket affinity card, that particular item is now linked to your identity. This is why the increased data capacity of RFIDs is meaningful.
And, of course, this means that if a major metropolitan area decides to put RFID readers in its lamp posts, it can track the movements of its citizens--not all, but enough of them--by the RFIDs in their pants as they walk by.
But you think this is no more dangerous than a barcode?
... you've been watching Elfen Lied, then?
Late middle ages, apparently. I'd never thought to wonder when the screwdriver was invented. Thanks for the prompt.
Buffy's season seven was interminable self-parodying dreck. Yeah, it had its high points, but at that point Joss had moved on to other projects. The endings of seasons three and five were much better endpoints for the series. (Though I'll admit some fondness for the very, very down ending of season two.)
Oh man, I love PLIF. I gotta say, though, this one's my favorite.
Could you quantify the ratio of energy we get from the sun compared to energy we get from that cosmic background radiation? Now, it's quite true that the sun is radiating its energy into the black, but I don't think you'll be extracting much usable energy from CBR, which was the original point of this thread.
Yes, but the solar system as a whole is indeed a closed system. Here, I can re-enact your argument:
"Dude, it's raining! What are you doing?"
"I'm standing under this tree to remain dry."
"But what are you going to do when the tree soaks through, and water starts falling on you again?"
"Oh, I'll just run under another tree."
With apologies to Asimov.
And here I thought the President had a monopoly on shooting the messenger.
Look, there was a story there. A valid story, about Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. A story that we won't get to hear or see now, because it's all been tarred with the fake-memo brush. Because Mapes and Rather thought the story wasn't quite good enough, they sexed it up... with faked evidence. How responsible were they? Well, they clearly didn't show the diligence that they were paid for.
And somehow you're saying it's the fault of Little Green Footballs that the memos were fakes? If I were a left-wing partisan hack, I'd be furious at Mapes and Rather for killing the TANG story. A six year old could have showed that they were fake. You're only embarrassing yourself by claiming otherwise.
When Mary Mapes posts here and tries to be clever, I'm sure she'll be greeted in the same fashion.
That Wikipedia article on sound servers you link to is only a half step above useless. Yech. I'll see if I can take a few minutes on it at some point.
I read it in early high school, and loved it, though I didn't know why. Re-read it this year, and felt very... unsettled, and didn't know exactly why.
I think the original poster may have been referring to Stilson and Bonzo. Ender beats them both to death, remember? And through some authorial legerdemain, it's not really his fault and he gets to feel real bad about it because, y'know, they made him do it. That didn't strike you as a bit of a stacked deck on Card's part?
Ender doesn't get to have his cake and eat it too - he spends the rest of his very long life atoning for his cake-eating.
I thought you were discussing Ender's Game, not the interminable list of sequels, or even the tacked-on abortive second novel in the last fifteen pages. Taken on its own, the book makes Ender into a hero for committing his genocide--and he's also the victim, because he was manipulated into it.
There's an allegation that Card did not, in fact, actually write Ender's Game in there, if you look for it, between all the vitriol.
The reason it's so vital to the plot to have Ender get picked on and retaliate beyond all possible reason (it's a tribute to Card's writing chops that we don't notice that the murders of Stilson and Bonzo are, well, kinda psychopathic) is that it's an adolescent revenge fantasy, with its dials all cranked to eleven.
Consider that a kid who seldom fights and is smaller than his opponents invariably manages to beat them to death. He conquers every obstacle before him, commits murder and genocide, and yet is the object of the book's compassion. Who wouldn't want to be an ultraviolent martyr like that?
Indeed, I think the angsty eighth-grader audience will be key for this movie, as well as every maladjusted geek who never got over getting picked on in high school and wishes he could go Columbine on the folks who made him miserable back in the day.