I made this comment upstream, but I think it bears repeating.
With the advent of no-overhead Publishing on demand, it seems to me that said professors could either adapt some of these open source resources, or write their own textbooks, and publish them for $30, and still make $10 a pop.
For those not quite ready for the leap to calculus, I've found this an excellent resource, Math for Morons like Us.
Side note: With the advent of no-overhead Publishing on Demand, from the likes of Lulu and Cafe Press, it seems to me a professor could put one of these electronic text in book form and sell it directly to students for $30 a pop, and still make a profit.
This is not an easy trick since the etendue law of light in physics requires more space for better efficiency. Our special technology enables us to get rid of a variety of components currently used in projectors that unnecessarily waste energy.
I hope they are able to do what they claim, but I'm always wary of companies that claim to have overcome the laws of physics.
Maybe I'm just bitter after getting burned on that anti-gravity skateboard deal.
Otherwise you might stumble across this information:
Rice says that the only way someone could pick the lock is to duplicate the key. "You could potentially have as many different points as you want on the lock barrel as inputs and outputs," he explained. "Because it is a 3D pathway you are dealing with, you have potentially billions or trillions of combinations depending on how the lock is made. The probability of duplicating the path is very small."
That said, a lot of these fancy locks seem like overkill, especially since in very high security systems, you'd tend to want some kind of human oversight in the loop.
Mainly, the idea that individual persons could make TV. That was a pretty revolutionary thought. It was that crazy idea and the Video Toaster/Lightwave bundle that got me into CGI, and out of Fargo North Dakota, where I was quite literally making industrial videos in a barn.
These days I live in the Boston area, and make games for a living. I don't want to exaggerate the impact the Video Toaster had on my life, but it was pretty significant. And I'm not the only person of that vintage with such a story.
So the real open source idea here is that technology can be fashioned to empower the individual. A somewhat quaint idea in today's multinational world, but one I'm quite fond of.
Yes, everyone says that your own imagination is better than anything you'll see at the movies.
Bah.
Look at the credits for LotR. We're talking about 100s of professional dreamers, all channeling their combined skills into one magnificent creative act.
They beat me. Their world was more brilliantly imagined, more consistently detailed than my lone brain could come up with reading those books as a kid.
I think this is lazy-speak for another phenomemon. When you read a book, you are triggering fundamentally different feelings than you get watching a movie. There is a pleasure in reading that you don't get from film (and, I think, the converse is true).
But, yes, I admit it. the combined talents of all the creative folk on LotR bested my imagination.
Kudos to them. And good luck to the H2G2 crew, they have a big job ahead of them.
Do *not* try to get into the game industry because you think the job would be fun.
That's like say, oh, it would be fun to be a writer, because they travel and drink whiskey.
Making games is damn hard work, and frequently frustrating, and frequently physically damaging, a frequently made unpleasant by dinks in suits.
If you want a job in the game industry, make sure it's because you damn-well *love* making games.
If you don't, then it will end up being "Office Space" with nerf-guns. We do this job because the only thing that sucks worse than making games is not making games.
"Is there some replacement for the dining room table? My dining room table is full of mail and bills and dirty dishes.
I'm wondering if there some kind of 3D replacement, perhaps a series of dining room tables stacked on top of each other. I'm thinking there must be an eaiser way to find bills and mail and dishes when I need them..."
Sheesh. Clean it up, get organized. Those icons don't put themselves on the desktop...well, ok, some of them do...but not those other ones...you put them there, just clean them up.
Or make a folder called "Rug", and sweep them all under it.
Not to do anything crazy like bring the artcle into the conversation, but the uncalibrated RGB raw data that the mars rover sends back, and the methods used to color correct it reminds me of this:
This brilliant Russian photographer in the late 1800s/early 1900s took an amazing number of photographs, and he would photograph everything three times, with a red, blue and green filter.
He would then use a special triple projector with the appropriate color filters to show gorgeous color images, long before the invention of color film.
So today, we can put these images back together in Photoshop, but we have the same Mars problem, we have three color channels, but no clear idea how they relate to each other.
Lacking a color-calibration sundial, we have to rely on our knowledge of skin tone, sky color, etc to tweak these colors. The link above has a link to the raw files in the Library of Congress, for geeks who want to recomposite some of their own.
The images are not recolored to "make them look pretty."
There are two main reasons for the color shifts.
Reason one, some of the images are taken lower in the IR spectrum, and the pigments on the sundail are desighned to react differently in that part of the spectrum.
Reason two, all the images sent back have their individual RGB channels normalized, which is similar to using "auto levels" in photoshop.
But the important factor is this: the sundail has a mirror which shows both the sky & the ground, and has full white & black reagions, meaning that even a normalized image will come through unscathed by color changes. These colors are then used to match colors for the rest of the images.
Bottom line, the colors we see are as accurate as can be gleaned, not just made up to look pretty.
(You can test this with digital camera images of your own. Run Auto Level on them (which equalizes the color channels). If there are images that full of color, but have no areas of pure white & pure black, you'll likely get some whacky colors. I have a picture of the Charles river with blue sky, green grass, and purple water)
Hey folks, do a google search on a few key words of the above, like 'so many allegedly "educated" people'
You will find a rich tapestry of trolls built off this same basic template.
One link leads to a how-to-troll archive and guide.
So, you fed the troll. Don't let it happen again.
But yes, having been there and back again in my misspent youth (the dew, and vivarin, an overnight job, 5 hours a sleep a day for a couple of years, complete with palpitations), I can say that all it takes is a tapering off, combined with drinking water (not decaf anything, not sprite, not OJ...water).
Also went the cold turkey route a couple of times, and it was like a mild flu, for a day and a half.
That said, I wasn't on coffee, and I swear, there is more to coffee than caffiene. It's sinister.
Largely free of the stuff today. What I discovered, in addition to all the reported effects, is that the combination of dehydration & vaso-constriction dramatically aggravates lower back pain.
From the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (Curiously, not a.gov address):
Legal Tender: A Definition
Section 102 of the Coinage Act of 1965 (Title 31 United States Code, Section 392) provides in part:
" All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."
This statute means that you have made a valid and legal offer of payment of your debt when you tender United States currency to your creditor. However, there is no Federal statute which mandates that private businesses must accept cash as a form of payment. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
I made this comment upstream, but I think it bears repeating.
With the advent of no-overhead Publishing on demand, it seems to me that said professors could either adapt some of these open source resources, or write their own textbooks, and publish them for $30, and still make $10 a pop.
Sounds like a win to me.
For those not quite ready for the leap to calculus, I've found this an excellent resource, Math for Morons like Us.
Side note: With the advent of no-overhead Publishing on Demand, from the likes of Lulu and Cafe Press, it seems to me a professor could put one of these electronic text in book form and sell it directly to students for $30 a pop, and still make a profit.
This is not an easy trick since the etendue law of light in physics requires more space for better efficiency. Our special technology enables us to get rid of a variety of components currently used in projectors that unnecessarily waste energy.
I hope they are able to do what they claim, but I'm always wary of companies that claim to have overcome the laws of physics.
Maybe I'm just bitter after getting burned on that anti-gravity skateboard deal.
Otherwise you might stumble across this information:
Rice says that the only way someone could pick the lock is to duplicate the key. "You could potentially have as many different points as you want on the lock barrel as inputs and outputs," he explained. "Because it is a 3D pathway you are dealing with, you have potentially billions or trillions of combinations depending on how the lock is made. The probability of duplicating the path is very small."
That said, a lot of these fancy locks seem like overkill, especially since in very high security systems, you'd tend to want some kind of human oversight in the loop.
Actually, the lego/45 degree mirror is working quite well.
Because turntables are expensive, and the only one I have around the house is for playing records...};^)
It's kind of junkyard wars in my computer room, whatever's lying about.
A work in progress.
Slowed down recently due to house-hunting, but nearing completion. The hardware is ready to go, just need to write the drivers & integration software.
The lower my center of gravity seems to shift.
And it doesn't really seem to help my game.
Damn these dorritos!!!
Mainly, the idea that individual persons could make TV. That was a pretty revolutionary thought. It was that crazy idea and the Video Toaster/Lightwave bundle that got me into CGI, and out of Fargo North Dakota, where I was quite literally making industrial videos in a barn.
These days I live in the Boston area, and make games for a living. I don't want to exaggerate the impact the Video Toaster had on my life, but it was pretty significant. And I'm not the only person of that vintage with such a story.
So the real open source idea here is that technology can be fashioned to empower the individual. A somewhat quaint idea in today's multinational world, but one I'm quite fond of.
Bravo New Tek! You made a difference. Keep it up.
The folks at the venerable Edmund Industrial Optical probably have what you seek.
Edmund...ah...what a catalog.
Beg to differ on the "professional" point.
You may read it as authorative, but here I excerpt two definitions (www.dictionary.com)
2. Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer.
4. Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.
The creative talents on LotR are professional dreamers (or if,you prefer, professional imaginers).
Sorry. Being creative is a skill like any other skill. You become better at it with practice, and some people go into it professionally.
Granted, this does not automatically make them better at it than enthusiasts, but that's how the smart money bets.
Yes, everyone says that your own imagination is better than anything you'll see at the movies.
Bah.
Look at the credits for LotR. We're talking about 100s of professional dreamers, all channeling their combined skills into one magnificent creative act.
They beat me. Their world was more brilliantly imagined, more consistently detailed than my lone brain could come up with reading those books as a kid.
I think this is lazy-speak for another phenomemon. When you read a book, you are triggering fundamentally different feelings than you get watching a movie. There is a pleasure in reading that you don't get from film (and, I think, the converse is true).
But, yes, I admit it. the combined talents of all the creative folk on LotR bested my imagination.
Kudos to them. And good luck to the H2G2 crew, they have a big job ahead of them.
Do *not* try to get into the game industry because you think the job would be fun.
That's like say, oh, it would be fun to be a writer, because they travel and drink whiskey.
Making games is damn hard work, and frequently frustrating, and frequently physically damaging, a frequently made unpleasant by dinks in suits.
If you want a job in the game industry, make sure it's because you damn-well *love* making games.
If you don't, then it will end up being "Office Space" with nerf-guns.
We do this job because the only thing that sucks worse than making games is not making games.
"Is there some replacement for the dining room table? My dining room table is full of mail and bills and dirty dishes.
I'm wondering if there some kind of 3D replacement, perhaps a series of dining room tables stacked on top of each other. I'm thinking there must be an eaiser way to find bills and mail and dishes when I need them..."
Sheesh. Clean it up, get organized. Those icons don't put themselves on the desktop...well, ok, some of them do...but not those other ones...you put them there, just clean them up.
Or make a folder called "Rug", and sweep them all under it.
I'm sorry, the numbered elements in your list qualify as a database, to which I hold copyright.
Damn...I'd just be happy to copyright:
"3. ???"
Next person who posts one of these jokes get the DMCA all over their ass. Sweet!
It's a trap...get an axe.
Honestly, there *is* a very good reason managers exist. They're an abstraction layer between the working man and the PHB.
Remove that abstraction layer, espcially in the presence of alcohol...
Yikes.
Not to do anything crazy like bring the artcle into the conversation, but the uncalibrated RGB raw data that the mars rover sends back, and the methods used to color correct it reminds me of this:
The Russian Record
This brilliant Russian photographer in the late 1800s/early 1900s took an amazing number of photographs, and he would photograph everything three times, with a red, blue and green filter.
He would then use a special triple projector with the appropriate color filters to show gorgeous color images, long before the invention of color film.
So today, we can put these images back together in Photoshop, but we have the same Mars problem, we have three color channels, but no clear idea how they relate to each other.
Lacking a color-calibration sundial, we have to rely on our knowledge of skin tone, sky color, etc to tweak these colors. The link above has a link to the raw files in the Library of Congress, for geeks who want to recomposite some of their own.
The images are not recolored to "make them look pretty."
There are two main reasons for the color shifts.
Reason one, some of the images are taken lower in the IR spectrum, and the pigments on the sundail are desighned to react differently in that part of the spectrum.
Reason two, all the images sent back have their individual RGB channels normalized, which is similar to using "auto levels" in photoshop.
But the important factor is this: the sundail has a mirror which shows both the sky & the ground, and has full white & black reagions, meaning that even a normalized image will come through unscathed by color changes. These colors are then used to match colors for the rest of the images.
Bottom line, the colors we see are as accurate as can be gleaned, not just made up to look pretty.
(You can test this with digital camera images of your own. Run Auto Level on them (which equalizes the color channels). If there are images that full of color, but have no areas of pure white & pure black, you'll likely get some whacky colors. I have a picture of the Charles river with blue sky, green grass, and purple water)
The RCX Brick and a few other Lego bits are the heart of my 3D Scanner project.
I need to set up NQC or LegOs for the next phase, and I need a good way to control the camera.
Dang. Not enough hours in the day.
That's awesome.
Warn the world about trolling behavior, and get modded a troll.
Hey folks, do a google search on a few key words of the above, like 'so many allegedly "educated" people' You will find a rich tapestry of trolls built off this same basic template. One link leads to a how-to-troll archive and guide. So, you fed the troll. Don't let it happen again.
Lay off the coffee, dude....
But yes, having been there and back again in my misspent youth (the dew, and vivarin, an overnight job, 5 hours a sleep a day for a couple of years, complete with palpitations), I can say that all it takes is a tapering off, combined with drinking water (not decaf anything, not sprite, not OJ...water).
Also went the cold turkey route a couple of times, and it was like a mild flu, for a day and a half.
That said, I wasn't on coffee, and I swear, there is more to coffee than caffiene. It's sinister.
Largely free of the stuff today. What I discovered, in addition to all the reported effects, is that the combination of dehydration & vaso-constriction dramatically aggravates lower back pain.
In advertising, much as in lawyering, it's not the incompetent ones we fear.
No excuse me, for I crave a cool, refreshing coca-cola...
From the Bureau of Engraving and Printing .gov address):
(Curiously, not a
Legal Tender: A Definition
Section 102 of the Coinage Act of 1965 (Title 31 United States Code, Section 392) provides in part:
" All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."
This statute means that you have made a valid and legal offer of payment of your debt when you tender United States currency to your creditor. However, there is no Federal statute which mandates that private businesses must accept cash as a form of payment. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.
( http://www.moneyfactory.com/document.cfm/18/110)
That's funny, my cheapass recommendations are completely different:
Unexploded Cow
Lord of the fries
US Patent #1
Enjoy!