My remote sensing professor had a setup using off-the-shelf video cameras for an airborne scanning system. Three "identical" cameras with filters to record three bands.
In the end, he discovered that there were substantial geometry differences between the cameras that made registering the three bands quite a challenge. That's the difference between a 12" format aerial photo camera and a 35mm SLR, the former costs a small fortune because a lot of effort has gone into ensurng that the film is held as flat as possible (on a plate rather than stretched between two spindles).
Then there's colour response. Same deal. I'd guess "scientific" quality sensors would be moe consistent in response to being hit by light.
Bascially if you can account for the effects of using more variable components (by calbration, experimental design or whatever), where's the problem? Regardless of which way you go, you will need to *know* how your instrumnts take their measurements so you can know how they influence your results.
The same shoe will also fit on the other foot. Maybe one day people will think it criminal to leave an idea languishing with a poverty stricken individual instead of realising its full potential with a cashed up development fund.
For the record, I find the idea that a notional entity should enjoy more privileges than a flesh & blood person to be a worrysome development.
All this means is that you must compile using a "secure" compiler. If you want to work with regulated media (like sound or video), you will need to use approved pre-compiled libraries that do not allow siphoning of content. The OS won't let you monkey with any content that has been tagged as copyright. And you can just forget about writing device drivers. The compiler will also probably embed an ID into anything you compile so that you can been arrested if you use it to break the law.
Software often has a rapid development, with some products having new versions released multiple times a day. The requirement of review by the Commerce Department would instantly destroy this rapid release cycle. The purpose of a cycle like this is to quickly stomp out bugs in applications, and allow developers quick feedback about their applications.
"To counter claims of their Linux wristwatch having only limited usefulness because of a 6 hour battery life, IBM today announced the shipping of a mains adapter for their wrist watch..."
Then they can do an IR mobility kit so you can access your watch remotely using a "wrist mounted X11 server".
Well here in Oz there are National guidelines for the viewing of online adult content by government staff. This was worked up for National web archiving projects where someone had to makea call on "adult" content. I believe it stipulates things like "Only one staff memeber to view the material and no more than two staff members standing around the screen".
Now sure you can architect non-objected Meccano (Erector in US-speak), but no-one forces you to. You can also attach wheels, pulleys and bits from dot-matrix printers.
Anyone else want to comment on the system architectures of other geek toys?
For the record, I coveted Capsula and Meccano, but had to make do with having the run if dad's workshop (bench grinders, drills etc. etc.). My best Xmas was when I got the Lego Techni car (when I was already in junior college I think)
You can't legally copy lists of names and phone numbers from the phone book to make your own phone book for sale. Same for maps, which I always thought was the stupidest thing. A basic outline of the US is copyrighted. It is just a shape. A really bumpy shape. But if it is in a child's coloring book, it is copyrighted.
The shape of the USA is not Copyrighted, the representation of it in a particular map can be Copyrighted. If I spend millions of dollars accurately mapping the cost of the USA, I want protection from you just ripping off all that survey work. Because anyone else's map of the USA will (hopefully) look the same, I will add artefacts ("watermarks") so that I can prove that a particular map was copied from my work.
User files should not be a problem. The same files would also be toast if the hard drive died. If people are not backing up to a durable medium (hey, they all ship with CD burners don't they?), they don't really care about their data.
I'd like to see a virus capble of erasing CD-Rs kept in a locked filing cabinet.
I worked with a guy who was using genetic algorithms to schedule harvesting, and it really quickly racks up an insane number of permutations.
Simply put, with 10 airports and 10 airplanes, our first step has 100 possible _initial_ (opening) moves, and they permutations mushroom really quickly after that. He ended up using a small Beowulf that always had the current real world state, and this way he could shuffle scheduling on a daily basis, adapting to changes.
In comparision, our local bus network is re-scheduling, it's going to take one guru a couple of months to "zen" a new schedule.
With this simple pyramid keyboard scheme, you can type not twice as fast, not ten times as fast, but MORE THAN ONE MILLION TIMES as fast as you do now. Do you know what 1 million score -1 Slashdot posts look like? It's amazing!
How does it work? For every key that you press, you will get back DOUBLE THAT NUMBER of AOL "Me too!" posts, greatly expanding your word count by including numerous un-edited follow-ups WITHOUT YOU HAVING TO LIFT A FINGER!
Simply copy this post to 10 of your closest friends, and ask them to follow you up on Slashdot, quoting your post in total and asking them to do the same to their ten closest friends...
Yeah! That stupid Internet thing the government set up has been like a total dud.
Further, I have little confidence in the ability of a municipal or other government to provide efficient, inexpensive Internet (or other) services,..
If there is a strategic need for a service, the government has incubated such services. I'd happily pay a little extra on rates to put in a data pipe rather than my current situation, which involves being gouged by a Telco monopoly.
As a sidenote, shouldn't there be a way for the ground control to override the controls of a hijacked plane?
More likely, planes will be designed to minimise any chance of passengers interacting with the flight crew. Gone will be the days when a geek could wheedle a visit to the cockpit. And flyng in to a city will be like flying to the Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, deviate from your flight path and they'll blat you.
In the longer term, technology isn't going to fix this problem. People ae too ingenious. It could have been a light plane loaded with Semtex, or a canister of germs.
Just about every item in the MySQL RDBMS I inherited uses varchar(100). I toyed with converting them, but too much of the code written around it assumes that its getting text.
The best solution is to make sure anyone who creates a database has to administer it.
Xix.
(off to check some circa 1983 database technology to see if it's croaked in the interval)
Email is easy to substitute. We use Outlook just as much for scheduling meetings and keeping track of where people are. I know of at least one site where they installed Outlook purely for calender (they forbid staff to use it as an MUA).
And despite my aversion to things from Bill, I use the calender/scheduling because it works painlessly.
I can't find the original article (work's pR0n filter deems ESR's home page to be grossly offensive) but I recall Something along these lines being said about the last Windows release as well. It all reads just like predictions of the
death of UseNet.
Windows 2000 will be either canceled or dead on arrival. Either way it will turn into a horrendous train wreck, the worst strategic disaster in
Microsoft's history. However, their marketing spin on this failure will be so deft that it will barely affect their hold on the consumer desktop within the next two years.
Is there an echo in here?
Xix.
P.S. I apologise if the above links are broken. I can reach cached copies, but not the pages themselves. Blame the PHBs.
Hence I specified crummy bandwidth sites. Commericial sites (.com) are one thing, but anything that looks like it's a volunteer thing (.org) or a student account at a university isn't going to be doing banner advertising and is more likey to buckle under a slashdotting. Maybe something akin to smbtorture and cache the page if it gets flakey on a test slashdotting.
But then the owner could always Slash Goat the page if the/. load annoys them.
The article's only been up a short time and already the original site is offline. Did the site owner know about the impending slashdotting? Even caching (ala Google) the page being linked to would probably make a huge difference for bandwidth challenged sites.
It really doesn't matter what the average user thinks, even if they are thinking about it (outside of this site, there is a huge number of people who would gladly give MS complete control over their computer so they needn't worry about it).
The adoption of.NET and its add-ons will be driven by corporations and government as an easy means of authenticating transactions. My bank does online banking, and I cannot (will not) use it because it requires a Win32 app. As far as they are concerned, if Windows is OK for 95% of the population, why can't I use it?
Then there's added attractions to content providers in that Linux will likely never offer the complete chain of security that MS can offer. Want to watch Titanic IV? You'll need Windows08 and a valid passport account.
Titanic IV will be far more important to the web surfers of tommorrow than chosing their OS (which is a commodity anyway) or the prospect of some spook reading their credit card bills.
MS are not standing still either. With.NET and hailstorm, they want to control the transaction infrastructure (and exacting a toll from people using it). MS would be hoping that their current position will hold long enough for them to entrench.NET. Commodity components don't count for anything if someone else owns the keys.
We have already had a telco using SMS to spam their customers (and billing them for the privilege). Imagine not being able to walk down the street without your phone being assailed with multimedia spam from each and every shop that you pass.
No! My shoe lace came undone and I happened to be out the front of Victoria's Secret. Honest honey...
Slashdot Mirror
My remote sensing professor had a setup using off-the-shelf video cameras for an airborne scanning system. Three "identical" cameras with filters to record three bands.
In the end, he discovered that there were substantial geometry differences between the cameras that made registering the three bands quite a challenge. That's the difference between a 12" format aerial photo camera and a 35mm SLR, the former costs a small fortune because a lot of effort has gone into ensurng that the film is held as flat as possible (on a plate rather than stretched between two spindles).
Then there's colour response. Same deal. I'd guess "scientific" quality sensors would be moe consistent in response to being hit by light.
Bascially if you can account for the effects of using more variable components (by calbration, experimental design or whatever), where's the problem? Regardless of which way you go, you will need to *know* how your instrumnts take their measurements so you can know how they influence your results.
Xix.
The same shoe will also fit on the other foot. Maybe one day people will think it criminal to leave an idea languishing with a poverty stricken individual instead of realising its full potential with a cashed up development fund.
For the record, I find the idea that a notional entity should enjoy more privileges than a flesh & blood person to be a worrysome development.
Xix.
The war on abstract nouns
I can't wait for:
"To counter claims of their Linux wristwatch having only limited usefulness because of a 6 hour battery life, IBM today announced the shipping of a mains adapter for their wrist watch..."
Then they can do an IR mobility kit so you can access your watch remotely using a "wrist mounted X11 server".
Xix.
Well here in Oz there are National guidelines for the viewing of online adult content by government staff. This was worked up for National web archiving projects where someone had to makea call on "adult" content. I believe it stipulates things like "Only one staff memeber to view the material and no more than two staff members standing around the screen".
Xix.
Now sure you can architect non-objected Meccano (Erector in US-speak), but no-one forces you to. You can also attach wheels, pulleys and bits from dot-matrix printers.
1. Meccano (erector) == C?
2. Lego Technic == C++?
3. Capsela == ???
Anyone else want to comment on the system architectures of other geek toys?
For the record, I coveted Capsula and Meccano, but had to make do with having the run if dad's workshop (bench grinders, drills etc. etc.). My best Xmas was when I got the Lego Techni car (when I was already in junior college I think)
Xix.
The shape of the USA is not Copyrighted, the representation of it in a particular map can be Copyrighted. If I spend millions of dollars accurately mapping the cost of the USA, I want protection from you just ripping off all that survey work. Because anyone else's map of the USA will (hopefully) look the same, I will add artefacts ("watermarks") so that I can prove that a particular map was copied from my work.
Xix.
User files should not be a problem. The same files would also be toast if the hard drive died. If people are not backing up to a durable medium (hey, they all ship with CD burners don't they?), they don't really care about their data.
I'd like to see a virus capble of erasing CD-Rs kept in a locked filing cabinet.
Xix.
I worked with a guy who was using genetic algorithms to schedule harvesting, and it really quickly racks up an insane number of permutations.
Simply put, with 10 airports and 10 airplanes, our first step has 100 possible _initial_ (opening) moves, and they permutations mushroom really quickly after that. He ended up using a small Beowulf that always had the current real world state, and this way he could shuffle scheduling on a daily basis, adapting to changes.
In comparision, our local bus network is re-scheduling, it's going to take one guru a couple of months to "zen" a new schedule.
Xix.
With this simple pyramid keyboard scheme, you can type not twice as fast, not ten times as fast, but MORE THAN ONE MILLION TIMES as fast as you do now. Do you know what 1 million score -1 Slashdot posts look like? It's amazing!
How does it work? For every key that you press, you will get back DOUBLE THAT NUMBER of AOL "Me too!" posts, greatly expanding your word count by including numerous un-edited follow-ups WITHOUT YOU HAVING TO LIFT A FINGER!
Simply copy this post to 10 of your closest friends, and ask them to follow you up on Slashdot, quoting your post in total and asking them to do the same to their ten closest friends...
(you get the idea)
Xix.
Terrorists are going to use _secure_ encryption, legal or not. This is an opportunistic attack on freedom, taking political advantage of a tragedy.
If the FBI is going to eavesdrop on any of these guys, it'll be by snooping on the hardware at each end.
Xix.
How many days before it's running a web server?
In the longer term, technology isn't going to fix this problem. People ae too ingenious. It could have been a light plane loaded with Semtex, or a canister of germs.
Xix.
Just about every item in the MySQL RDBMS I inherited uses varchar(100). I toyed with converting them, but too much of the code written around it assumes that its getting text.
The best solution is to make sure anyone who creates a database has to administer it.
Xix.
(off to check some circa 1983 database technology to see if it's croaked in the interval)
So who would be your OS dream team?
Everyone knows real software companies use coffee cups for promotion.
Xix.
--
"My boss built an RDBMS company and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"
Email is easy to substitute. We use Outlook just as much for scheduling meetings and keeping track of where people are. I know of at least one site where they installed Outlook purely for calender (they forbid staff to use it as an MUA).
And despite my aversion to things from Bill, I use the calender/scheduling because it works painlessly.
Xix.
Is there an echo in here?
Xix.
P.S. I apologise if the above links are broken. I can reach cached copies, but not the pages themselves. Blame the PHBs.
Hence I specified crummy bandwidth sites. Commericial sites (.com) are one thing, but anything that looks like it's a volunteer thing (.org) or a student account at a university isn't going to be doing banner advertising and is more likey to buckle under a slashdotting. Maybe something akin to smbtorture and cache the page if it gets flakey on a test slashdotting.
/. load annoys them.
But then the owner could always Slash Goat the page if the
Xix.
The article's only been up a short time and already the original site is offline. Did the site owner know about the impending slashdotting? Even caching (ala Google) the page being linked to would probably make a huge difference for bandwidth challenged sites.
Xix.
It really doesn't matter what the average user thinks, even if they are thinking about it (outside of this site, there is a huge number of people who would gladly give MS complete control over their computer so they needn't worry about it).
.NET and its add-ons will be driven by corporations and government as an easy means of authenticating transactions. My bank does online banking, and I cannot (will not) use it because it requires a Win32 app. As far as they are concerned, if Windows is OK for 95% of the population, why can't I use it?
The adoption of
Then there's added attractions to content providers in that Linux will likely never offer the complete chain of security that MS can offer. Want to watch Titanic IV? You'll need Windows08 and a valid passport account.
Titanic IV will be far more important to the web surfers of tommorrow than chosing their OS (which is a commodity anyway) or the prospect of some spook reading their credit card bills.
Xix.
MS are not standing still either. With .NET and hailstorm, they want to control the transaction infrastructure (and exacting a toll from people using it). MS would be hoping that their current position will hold long enough for them to entrench .NET. Commodity components don't count for anything if someone else owns the keys.
Xix.
We have already had a telco using SMS to spam their customers (and billing them for the privilege). Imagine not being able to walk down the street without your phone being assailed with multimedia spam from each and every shop that you pass.
No! My shoe lace came undone and I happened to be out the front of Victoria's Secret. Honest honey...
Xix.